


Kissing Families

by Therru



Series: Kissing Families [1]
Category: Hannibal (TV), Hannibal Lecter Series - All Media Types, Hannibal Lecter Tetralogy - Thomas Harris
Genre: Anal Sex, Bottom!Hannibal, Canon-Compliant, Canon-Typical Gore, Canon-Typical Violence, Crime Scenes, F/F, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Fresh Meat Friday, Hannigram - Freeform, M/M, Murder Family, Murder Husbands, Narcissism, Oral Sex, Psychological Horror, Psychological Trauma, Serial Killers, Slash, Smut, Top!Will, Vaginal Sex, Will is NOT a shaking stuttering mess all the time, but everything still happens so much, dark!Abigail, dark!Will, extreme psychological manipulation, fightfucking, heterotica, homorotica, medical misfortunes, psychopathy, season 2 happens over slightly different timeframe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-03
Updated: 2015-05-21
Packaged: 2018-03-28 21:11:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 48,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3869947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Therru/pseuds/Therru
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"No one can be fully aware of another human being unless we love them. By that love, we see potential in our beloved. Through that love, we allow our beloved to see that potential. Expressing that love, our beloved's potential comes true." </p><p>OR: What things could have been like for the Murder Family if Hannibal and Will had their heads a little less far up their own asses and put their dicks up each other's instead.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Derailed

**Author's Note:**

  * For [asprigofzest](https://archiveofourown.org/users/asprigofzest/gifts).



> Dear Fannibalamily,
> 
> Welcome to the murder family novel series, full of canon-typical violence and grotesquery, circumstantial smut, sassy sassy science, and badass motherfuckery from Murder Family. It is a tribute to the murder family that could have been if Will had done LITERALLY ONE THING differently. Canon-divergence happens roughly around Ko No Mono. Roughly.
> 
> This entire series has been and continues to be edited by the love of my life: my darling murder-wife, Kate ([asprigofzest](http://archiveofourown.org/users/asprigofzest/pseuds/asprigofzest) on A03, [@weesprigofzest](http://weesprigofzest.tumblr.com) on tumblr). Come join us in the Hannigram trash dumpster. Abigail Hobbs is here, too, shipping Hannigram as hard as we do, and keeping Murder Family alive.
> 
> Enjoy!
> 
> Love,  
> Therru  
> ([Hannibalistics](http://es-therru.tumblr.com))

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hannibal and Will grudgingly explore the concept of actually talking to each other before whipping out the linoleum knives. It's a good thing.

“What do you see behind closed eyes?”

“I see the stag. It’s writhing on the forest floor, dying…” Will’s reluctance stunts his explanation and, after a lengthy pause, he finishes lamely, “…giving birth to something transformed.” He is loath to continue.

“What does this creature do when it opens its eyes to the world?” Hannibal asks helpfully, then, shrewdly, “What do _you_ do?”

“In the dream?”

“Of course.”

“Struggle. Scream. The transformation is painful, but I know it’s only half as painful as it could be.” Will shrugs and resumes eating. Now that he’s aware of how poorly it translates, he’s ready to put this talk about his recurring dream to bed.

Hannibal, of course, pries further. “Are there any witnesses to your rebirth?”

“No.” Will doesn’t say anything about the wendigo, about its measured, impossibly slow approach, its proffered hand, barely visible in the weak moonlight shining down on them both. He doesn’t say anything about the wretched calm it exudes as the creature that was,  _is_ , Will stands for the first time.

For a moment he thinks he’s spoken aloud after all, because Hannibal’s next question is, “What do you do when you find your feet?”

Will lets his fork hover over his plate and, after a pause, puts it down altogether. “I mourn the stag. Burn the body. Bury the ashes.”

“Why?”

“Guilt... I feel guilty.” Will slumps back against the chair, appetite dissolved. “I don’t want to be born from sacrifice.”

“In the dream.”

“Of course.”

“And when you are awake?” Hannibal takes a bite with an infuriating delicacy that makes his question seem all the more pointed.

Will chooses not to answer. He’s afraid he might couple his words with a blow to Hannibal’s jaw, still working unapologetically at the food in his mouth, serene as ever. When he collects himself, he says, slowly and quietly at first so Hannibal has to lean forward slightly to hear him, “You can’t reduce me to a set of influences. I am who I’ve always been – not the product of anything. I’ve given up good and evil for behaviorism.”

“Hardly a small concept to let go of. You challenge people’s perceptions of you.”

Will brings his glass to his lips, pauses, and sets it back on the table without taking a sip, instead wetting his bottom lip with his tongue and folding his hands. “You mean Alana’s perception of me – in light of her perception of  _you_.”

“You think her perception of me is wrong?”

“Misguided.” He withdraws his hands and picks up his wine glass again. Before taking a long draught, he clarifies, “Alana sees the best in you. I… don’t.”

“You will.”

Will can see Hannibal is pleased with himself for bringing a year’s worth of conversations full circle. From the motel room in Minnesota where lines were drawn, a challenge accepted, to here at his dinner table, new lines drawn, a new challenge accepted. Will gives him a small smile of acknowledgement, but feels distinctly like his statement has been disregarded. He decides to let it go, and reaches for the bottle of wine to keep himself from saying anything more.

Hannibal continues to study him as the corners of Will’s lips settle back in line. He waits for him to finish refilling their glasses, and then waits a little longer. It forces Will to look up in order to assess the nature of the silence. He looks as though he’s just given himself a private talking-to. 

Hannibal just says, “I don’t wish to reduce you to anything. I look forward to witnessing you exert your own influence.” When Will drops his gaze again and says nothing, he adds, “Surely you must realize, you are  _not_ who you’ve always been. Every moment of every day shapes us. Every experience is an added brush stroke, added depth to our self-portrait.”

That earns a chuckle from Will. “That’s some weak poetry, Dr. Lecter, and also difficult to accept coming from you.”

“I think you don’t mean the poetry.”

“I  _mean_ , it’s difficult to accept wise words on change from someone who doesn’t change.”

The conversation becomes solemn again. Hannibal narrows his eyes thoughtfully. “I agree I’m more resilient than most to the ebb and flow of people in my life. To their desires, their influence… You think this indicates an incapacity for change?”

“That’s what I think.” Will is baiting him, but he’s too tired to be more than half-hearted about it. He gazes out the window in case Hannibal expects him to follow this up with something more potent.

“Interesting.” Hannibal stands then, looking less interested than he does insulted. Brusquely, he announces, “I think it’s time for dessert.”

Will helps him clear the table, but at the sink he turns and leans heavily against the counter with a sigh. “Do you think you can manage dessert on your own?” Hannibal frowns, and Will looks apologetic. “Or save it for another time?” He presses the palms of his hands against his eyes. “I want to go home. I’m tired.”

He feels Hannibal take his wrists, and looks at him through the Brownian movements of bright spots in his vision. He thinks it might be nice to see everything this way – even the darkness peppered with dots of light.

“Please, Will,” Hannibal says. “Sit down. I think you will be very pleased with what I have for us tonight.” He gestures with his arm for Will to wait in the dining room. “I won’t be long.”

 

Will sits with an elbow on the table, thumb and forefinger massaging the muscles above the bridge of his nose. This is tiring, this leading a double life, the boundaries of which seem to be under constant negotiation, construction, deconstruction. His conversations with Hannibal and his conversations with Jack are beginning to mirror each other too closely, and he’s waiting to be strangled in the entanglement of each man’s expectations – to ruin everything or, at the very least, get himself killed. He rests his forehead against his hands but keeps his eyes open, afraid that if he closes them, he might actually fall asleep.

He drifts anyway. The centerpiece he is attempting to focus on blurs and doubles and blurs again. The sound of the clock is muffled on and off, in time with his heartbeat, as though the ticking is another pulse point somehow existing outside his body. He hears Hannibal’s sure, even footsteps with an echo. An echo that doesn’t follow consistently, and stops well after Hannibal has sat down. Will blinks rapidly to try and clear his head. He drops one arm to the table and rubs his other hand over his face, about to apologize for dozing.

His first thought is that she looks just like she did the last time he saw her. His second thought is that the infection must have returned. He stares, hand still covering his mouth, then his eyes slip away – reluctantly – to meet Hannibal’s.

Hannibal gives a small nod,  _yes_ , in response to Will’s unasked question. The one Will still instinctively looks to Hannibal to answer.

He looks back to Abigail. She is inching forward into the room. “Will?” she says. She hesitates at the head of the table, equidistant from Hannibal and Will.

“Oh my god,” Will says into his hand. “Oh my god.”

He isn’t sure he should go to her, but he finds he already has. He clutches her to him, continuing to whisper  _Oh my god_ into her hair. He pulls back just enough to look down into her face and make sure she’s still there, and then it’s Abigail closing the gap between them, pushing her face into his chest and wrapping her arms vice-like about his middle.

Will thinks he’s going to die. Somehow, he finds the clarity to say in a startlingly functional voice, “Want some fresh air?” and she laughs a little tearfully and nods. Will loosens his arms around her and finally looks at Hannibal. Abigail looks at him too. His face is composed and benign watching them. He swallows, but doesn’t speak. Instead, he lifts the corner of his mouth in a half smile and nods his chin at the patio doors.

Abigail takes the lead, Will follows, and Hannibal, still wordless, disappears back into the kitchen.

 

Outside, the moon is rising and the stars are fading, the light from each in a transient state that adds to the surrealism Will is choosing not to worry about. If this isn’t real, he’s determined not to wake before he has to, and if this is real, then everything –  _everything_  – will be okay. Will rests his elbows on the railing and leans out over the porch. Abigail mimics him.

There are minutes of inexplicably comfortable silence, in which both of them wade through their thoughts towards each other and what they hope is reality, looking over at the other several times as though gauging whether they’re moving closer or farther away. Briefly, before recognizing that he doesn’t have to, Will imagines they are standing knee-deep in the stream. Then, he takes a deep breath and lets himself believe she is not a hallucination. Not a fever dream. She’s here. Alive. It doesn’t matter where they are.

A voice he thought he’d never hear again breaks the quiet. “I’m sorry for what I said before.”

Will shrugs. “You didn’t say much,” he says lightly.

“I know.”

After a pause, he says, “You choose your words carefully.”

“I chose those ones to hurt you. I didn’t want a father. But you took care of me anyway.”

“I also scared you.”

“You were sick.”

“I’m sorry anyway.”

She smiles and edges closer. “I’m sorry anyway too.”

Will straightens away from the railing and, without a second thought, pulls her to him again.

Just as he is encasing her in a fatherly hug, Abigail sees him smile at her smile, and at her words, carefully chosen, this time to make amends.

And that is that. She’s never felt more relieved in her life.

When his embrace can’t keep the chilly air from making her shiver anymore, he squeezes her shoulders and rubs her upper arms. “Come on, kid,” he says, voice soft not, for a change, with anger or embarrassment. He puts one arm around her and leads her back inside.

When they reach the sitting room, Hannibal is reading by a lively fire. He puts the book aside and glances at his watch, then at Abigail with an unreadable smile. She goes to him even before he stretches a hand out for her. She takes it and leans over the chair to kiss him on the cheek. It is fond but reserved, as are his answering gestures: one swift stroke of her hair, a kiss on the forehead, a quick squeeze of her arm, and then he says, “Goodnight, Abigail.”

“Goodnight.” She moves to the door. “Goodnight, Will.”

 

Out of habit, she doesn’t close the door all the way, and pauses outside it for a few minutes, listening. Hearing nothing but quiet, pacing footsteps, she is about to sneak away when she hears Hannibal’s imperative voice. It’s just the right volume to be chastising or comforting – whatever he chooses.

“Sit down, Will.” The footsteps stop. “Why are you shaking?”

Abigail leans closer and with her cheek pressed against the doorframe she can just see the two of them. Will has his face in his hands and slowly drops his elbows to his knees.

From where Hannibal is seated, it’s clear that no  _one_  thought has Will arrested in this almost prayer-like position, although there  _is_  one dominating the foreground of all the images flitting through his mind.

From where Abigail is standing, Will just looks defeated. She bites her lip and waits for Hannibal to ask why Will isn’t happy that she’s alive. Her heart thumps louder, and the relief she’d felt after her easy reconciliation with Will dissipates rapidly.

“Is there something you want to tell me, Will?” It isn’t a question.

Will raises his head, clasps his hands and rests his chin on his knuckles, face expressionless. His voice is equally stoic when he announces, “I didn’t kill Freddie Lounds. She’s not dead.” Then Hannibal sees a smile, followed by a furrowed brow, as though Will is puzzled by his own words.

Abigail holds her breath in the silence that follows. It goes on so long she’s faint when Hannibal murmurs something in a voice too low to be heard.

Will obviously hadn’t heard him either because, a moment later, Hannibal raises his voice to just-audible, and repeats himself. “Why are you telling me this?” He sounds ready to destroy something.

At this moment, Will is in danger, and Abigail knows it though she doesn’t know why. As quickly as the situation becomes dire, however, she senses a change in their dynamic and watches, fascinated, at the scene unfolding before her.

Will stands and moves to the fire. He stares at it, his back to Hannibal, as though he’s not afraid – as though he doesn’t  _need_  to be afraid. As though they suddenly have all the time in the world. After a while, he turns to Hannibal and says, flatly, “Because I would.” His face is a riptide of every conceivable emotion when he finally meets Hannibal’s eyes. In a forceful whisper, he adds, “I  _will_.”

They seem locked in a staring contest but, after another unbearably long silence, Will’s taut power stance relaxes. He walks out of her line of vision, away from Hannibal, probably to look out the window like Hannibal says he’s prone to after confrontations. He isn’t done speaking though. She hears him assert with absolute clarity, “I will kill Freddie Lounds if that’s what it takes to keep Abigail.”

And then she has to run. She thinks she makes it up the stairs unheard, but doesn’t pause to check. In her bedroom, on her bed, she yanks a pillow out from under the sheets, buries her face in it, and screams.

She already knew Hannibal had no problem killing. Killing for her. Killing around her. She  _didn’t_  know Will’s violence could extend past the scope of self-defence. Now she knows saving a life isn’t the only reason he would kill. He wants to keep her, and it is so familiar a situation, she’s terrified. When she’s done screaming she still feels fear churning in her stomach, but a less familiar feeling churns along with it. Something like anticipation.

She takes a deep breath and flops down onto the mattress without changing her clothes or turning off the light, face buried in her pillow again. Before she allows herself hope, she needs to determine a few things.  _Just one thing for now_ , she thinks. She can start to believe that this family will be different – that their love won’t end each other – but she needs to determine with certainty, and soon –

_If I try to leave, will they try to kill me?_

 

Will is a little bit dazed at his own confession. He finds he doesn’t want the hand that is placed on his shoulder, or the glass of whiskey that is placed in his hand. He takes a sip anyway and tries to slide out from under Hannibal’s grip. It doesn’t let up. Will tries to recall if Hannibal’s touch has always felt this way: a little too firm to be wholly comforting, but still easily mistaken as such.

“I must admit, Will. I’m confused.”

“Are you? I half thought you knew and were just playing along. You like to toy with people that way.”

“As do you, apparently.” Hannibal removes his hand and places it in his pocket. He moves away, but only a few paces.

“I wasn’t toying with you. Jack and I planned to catch you in the act and arrest you. It’s as simple as that. For Jack at least,” Will adds bitterly.

Hannibal nods. “It’s harder to be the lure than the one standing on shore waiting to club the landed fish.”

“Yes.”

“Still, you were willing to do it, to catch me.”

Will says nothing.

“You would have denied me my life.”

“No.”

“My freedom then? Confined me to a prison cell?”

“I would have let you get away.”

“Tell me, how would you have managed that?”

“I hadn’t worked out the particulars. It seemed dangerous to plan too far ahead. If I’d had an agenda, you would have known it.”

Hannibal acknowledges this with a vague tilt of his head.

“All I knew was the end game: Jack finds out the truth about the Ripper, and you escape. In the meantime, try to stay alive.”

Hannibal appears to consider this. Waiting for his response, Will feels a bit like he had while waiting for the results of his brain scan. “We couldn’t have left without you,” Hannibal says simply.

“Well I guess it’s a good thing you decided to let me know there’s a  _we_  and not just a  _you_.” He means it to be harsh, but not as harsh as it comes out. Still, he doesn’t apologize; it won’t sound sincere with his blood still hot and rushing too rapidly beneath his skin.

“I see.” Hannibal’s voice is toneless, and Will doesn’t feel like listening harder to catch any uncertainty or hurt underlying it. “You would not have run with me if it was only me.”

“I don’t know,” Will says irritably. “Like I said, I hadn’t got that far.”

Hannibal is silent.

“I had – what did you call it? – an  _obligation to my field_. One that couldn’t be fulfilled by letting you carry on doing what I assume you’re still doing.” He takes another sip of whiskey, mostly because he knows he should shut up now. He continues only when he is confident he can speak with less acrimony. “I wouldn’t have let them kill you, and I wouldn’t have let them lock you up. You have enough money to buy yourself a hundred new identities.” He brings the glass to his lips again, and, just before he takes a sip, mutters into the drink, “At least, you dress like that’s the case.”

A slow smile spreads over Hannibal’s face. “Very well. It seems that despite our different alliances, both our plans were to result in my being abroad and free.”

Will sounds much less irritated, maybe even relieved, when he answers, “Yes, exactly.”

“However, in one world, you are by my side. In the other, you are still alone and miserable, being abused by the FBI until you die what I can only imagine will be an untimely death due to work-related stress.”

“Bit of an oversimplification.”

“A bit, yes.”

If Hannibal weren’t gazing intently at Will’s face, he’d miss the small smile that flickers over it.

“I’m confused too,” Will admits.

“About what, Will?”

“Why now?”

“The truth?”

“That would be nice.”

“I flipped a coin.”

“Unbelievable.”

Hannibal inclines his head towards the chairs by the fire. They sit, and Will leans his head back and closes his eyes, anger spent. He waits for Hannibal to explain, or not explain, whatever he chooses. As always.

“Before I made any of my more elaborate plans known to you, I felt you should pass a series of – shall we call them  _aptitude tests_?”

“Randall Tier.” Will’s face doesn’t change and his eyes remain closed.

“Randall Tier, yes. Freddie Lounds – although we will have to readdress that one at some point. And you passed a number of tests  _not_  set by me. You were a thing of beauty, in the stable, intent on shooting Mr. Ingram. Even in my kitchen, intent on shooting me, you were radiant, Will.”

Will chuckles softly. “I’m glad you enjoyed that.”

“You surprised me. I wanted to surprise you. My intention was to keep Abigail hidden only until Jack Crawford was... taken care of.”

“You mean dead.” Will opens his eyes and finishes his whiskey. He thinks it might be suicide to put the glass down without a coaster, but there are none in sight, so he holds on to his empty and leans back again.

“Incapacitated, at least. I had hoped by then you would want to kill him yourself. He certainly deserves to die at your hands.”

“I don’t want to think about Jack. I’m going to have to do that soon enough. As in, a few hours from now, when he’s expecting a report.”

“What will you tell him?”

“What I always tell him. That you’ve given me nothing concrete to work with. Just hints of the vaguest sort, and some pretty godawful puns.”

“Would you like me to come up with some more? To back up your story, of course.” Hannibal smiles at him, a wicked and playful thing.

Will forestalls the flirtatious banter he hears Hannibal leading them into with a shake of his head. “No. But thanks. Finish telling me about the coin toss.”

“The toss wasn’t to decide  _if_  to reveal Abigail to you. It was to decide  _when_. In a few weeks, as planned? Or tonight?”

“Why was tonight even an option, though? You’ve been hiding her for months. What’s a few more weeks?” Will is simply curious now.

“I asked myself that. I’m usually a very patient man. I suppose when I looked at those _few more weeks_ , I saw missed opportunities. Regardless of my intentions, my actions have caused you a great deal of pain.”

“You let me think she was dead,” Will says, a small amount of heat returning to his voice. “That  _I_  killed her. An hour ago I still thought she was dead. You can’t know how that feels.”

“No,” Hannibal agrees. “But I was aware that you were feeling it. Which is why  _now_  became an option, along with  _later_.”

“That’s inhuman, Hannibal. You could have just scrapped the  _later_.”

“I couldn’t let all my planning go to waste.”

“But you could put it all into the outcome of a coin toss.”

“Yes. Leaving some things to chance alleviates retrospective anxiety over the decisions we make.”

Will just closes his eyes again and shakes his head.

“Would it make you feel better to know that I  _hoped_  this would be the outcome?”

“Not really, no.” He pauses and swallows. “This doesn’t feel real.”

“You’re tired, Will.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever been more tired in my life,” he agrees. “Can I see Abigail again before I go? I won’t wake her… I just want to see her.”

Hannibal looks as though he might say something, but apparently thinks better of it and stands, holding out his hand for Will’s empty glass.

 

Before he realizes what he’s doing, Will is dissecting Abigail’s room like a crime scene. The door not fully closed and the lights still on suggest she threw herself on the bed in a hurry; the way her arms are wrapped around the pillow she’s sleeping on suggests she’s been using it to muffle her tears, or her screams; she’s still fully clothed, suggesting that after she’d finished screaming or crying, she was exhausted enough to pass out just as she is.

But she’s still there.

He hears Hannibal’s voice behind him. “You can stay, Will.”

Will watches as Hannibal casually does what he’s been hesitating over himself: he walks to the bed and puts a blanket over Abigail, and shifts her enough onto her side that she won’t wake up with a sore neck. Will feels a small twinge of jealousy. How many nights had Hannibal done that while Will was grieving elsewhere?

“No,” Will says, shaking his head. “I have lectures tomorrow, and the drive will be good right now. Talk to Abigail in the morning,” he adds, frowning. “I’m pretty sure she heard us.”

Hannibal nods, walks back to him, and puts a hand on his shoulder, gentler this time. “Come back tomorrow night. I promise you she will still be here.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta'd by my beautiful murderwife, Kate ([asprigofzest](http://archiveofourown.org/users/asprigofzest/pseuds/asprigofzest) on A03, [@weesprigofzest](http://weesprigofzest.tumblr.com) on tumblr).
> 
>  
> 
> [My twitter](https://twitter.com/ES_Therru)   
>  [My tumblr](http://es-therru.tumblr.com)   
>  [Our Etsy store](https://www.etsy.com/ca/shop/TheseAreHerDesigns)


	2. Not As Glamorous As It Sounds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Abigail and Will are adorable at each other. Jack loses the plot. Freddie says she's learned her lesson and then proves that she hasn't.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta'd by the lovely ([Kate](http://archiveofourown.org/users/asprigofzest/pseuds/asprigofzest). Check out [her blog](http://weesprigofzest.tumblr.com)! [Mine](http://es-therru.tumblr.com) is seriously lacking, so you should just go to her for all things Hannibal.

Will’s last class ends at 3pm, and he bolts immediately afterwards. As Jack is no doubt hunting him down in the hopes that he’d somehow have anything new to report since this morning, he _accidentally_  turns off his phone as well. Successfully evading Jack, he makes it to Hannibal’s office by 4:40pm.

He turns his phone back on and checks his messages while waiting, more for something to do than out of guilt. There are, unsurprisingly, several missed calls from Jack, and a voicemail.

_I get it. You want to be left alone. It’s the weekend, so fine. But first thing Monday I need you to come and look through some things. Don’t try ducking me again._

_Typical, benevolent Jack_ _._ Two whole days to himself, only tainted with the promise of more psychological abuse come Monday, and a healthy dose of guilt for having the audacity not to answer his call. Jack isn’t so much _leaving him alone_ , as leaving him to stew in his own conscience for the weekend.

Just after 5pm, Hannibal steps out of his office and into the waiting room, locking the door behind him.

As they walk to their cars, Will says, “I’m not sure I thanked you for dinner last night.”

“It was my pleasure, Will.”

“On principle, I probably shouldn’t  _thank_  you for not committing murder.”

Hannibal smiles slightly. “Praise for failing to do wrong should only be given if that failure arises from actively doing right.” After a pause he asks, “How were your lectures, and your meeting with Jack?”

“All things considered, I think I compartmentalized pretty well.”

“How are you feeling?”

“Overwhelmed.”

They suspend their conversation for the separate drive back to the house. When they meet up again at the front door, Hannibal is ready with, “Are you too overwhelmed to bring Abigail back to Wolf Trap with you tonight?”

“No. Is that what I’m doing?”

“It would be helpful. Alana has invited herself to spend the night, and I don’t think Abigail will take kindly to hiding, now that she has another option.”

“You really didn’t need to tell me that.”

“I apologize, Will.” Hannibal hangs their coats. “However, we should discuss this, at a later time perhaps.”

“Among other things.”

They make their way into the kitchen. Hannibal goes to the fridge for a bottle of chilled wine and Will makes himself at home on one of the bar stools.

“Most pressing, I believe, is what you intend to do about Jack.”

“Most pressing is dinner,” Abigail asserts as she breezes into the room.

Will feels like he is just now stepping out of the stuffy Academy lecture hall. She smiles shyly for about two seconds – maybe worried that what they’d said last night wouldn’t hold up in the light of day – then gives in to her impulsive need to hug him.

“Very well. Uncle Jack can wait.” Hannibal pours them each a glass of wine (Abigail’s significantly less full than the other two) and rolls up his sleeves, ready to begin the theatrics of putting together a meal.

 

After dinner, Will is unable to sit still, and washes all the dishes quickly while Abigail and Hannibal eat the dessert they hadn’t gotten to last night.

“Ready?” he asks her when they’re done.

“Yeah.” She has a little duffel bag at her feet, which she picks up, standing at his restlessness. “Did you take something?”

He laughs nervously. “Just a dose of paranoia. I don’t want to have to sneak you out if Alana shows up early.”

“Dr. Bloom is neither more nor less than punctual,” Hannibal comments, joining them at the door.

“All the same…” Will says. Then, “Thank you for dinner.”

“My pleasure. Goodnight, Will. Goodnight, Abigail.” Hannibal gives her a kiss on the forehead, and Abigail gives him a kiss on the cheek, just like the night before.

Back in Wolf Trap, Will apologetically makes up a bed for her on the couch since he hadn’t had time to change his sweat-stained sheets.

 

The next morning, Will trudges sleepily into the living room. “Can we walk the dogs?” is the first thing Abigail says. She is kneeling on the couch with her forehead pressed against the glass – so much like a puppy in the window herself.

They round everyone up and set out across the flats.

They walk in amicable, but slightly awkward silence for a good while as Will collects his thoughts. He separates the things he wants to tell her from the questions, and further filters out the questions he definitely shouldn’t ask. Or at least, he tries to. “So were you…?” Will stops himself, immediately regretting opening his mouth at all. If only they could skip this part. He’d been optimistic that the bright sunshine and clean, fresh air might eradicate his remaining doubts about her.

As though reading his mind, she says, “It’s okay. You can ask.”

He digs his teeth into his bottom lip. “I wish it didn’t matter…”

“You want to know how much I knew – if I was in on it.”

“Yeah.” He sighs, unable to think of a less accusatory way of phrasing it.

“Not for a long time. For a long time I didn’t know what else to do, so I just did what he told me.”

“Was he good to you? Besides the ear?”

“Being a prisoner of war in Hannibal Lecter’s house is pretty luxurious.”

Will is disturbed that she uses the term  _prisoner of war_ , and even more disturbed that he finds it apt. He glances at the scarring on the left side of her head where her ear had been. She tosses her hair over it and looks away. She still wears a scarf. “You don’t have to hide those,” he says.

“They’re ugly.” She glares at him.

Will shakes his head. “I don’t think so.”

She gives him a withering look. “Dr. Lecter said the same thing,” she accuses.

“Well… Two against one,” Will says lamely.

“He  _has_  to say that. He’s the one who cut my ear off.”

“Hm,” Will agrees. “And why do  _I_  have to say it?”

“I don’t know. Because you’re you?”

“Meaning?”

“You care about me.”

“And that makes me a liar?”

“Sometimes.” She practically whispers it, watching his face carefully, unsure of how he will respond, or if he’ll understand that she’s trying to thank him.

It’s Will’s turn to read her mind. “I know you did it because you had to. To survive. I’m glad you survived.” He frowns at the total inadequacy of his words.

“You don’t wish–?”

“ _No_.”

This brief exchange seems to be enough to put Abigail back at ease. “I did some growing up,” she offers. “While I was… dead, I guess.” She laughs quietly, then bites her lip. “I’d lie awake at night just cringing at the things I said. I was so,  _so_  stupid.”

“You’re only seventeen, Abigail. Give yourself a break.”

“I’m eighteen now.”

 _Of course._  She’d turned eighteen while he was locked up. He’d spent that whole day in his head, straining for memories and making promises to the Abigail at the stream, who was tying blood knots and smiling at him sweetly. He’d snapped at Alana when she’d come to visit, wanting to be alone. When she wouldn’t leave, he’d made a scathing comment about her and Dr. Lecter, and she’d teared up before walking away silently. He’d spent that whole night awake, curled in on himself, feeling like he’d failed even Abigail’s ghost.

“What are you thinking about?”

Will smiles wryly. “Just a bit of my own cringe-worthy past. I remember you had a birthday now.” After a moment he asks, “Can you do anything special at eighteen?”

She smiles cheekily. “It’s been that long, huh?”

Now  _he_  glares at  _her_ , though he can only manage it for a moment. “It really has,” he admits.

“I don’t know if you can. Probably. But not if you’re dead.” Her tone carries no self-pity, but Will feels remorse nonetheless. Abigail sees it and adds, lightly, “There are things that you can’t do when you’re alive, too, though.”

“You must have been really bored.”

She shrugs. “At first I was too scared to be bored. I thought he would kill me if I said or did the wrong thing.”

“What changed?”

She’s thoughtful, and they walk along in renewed silence for a bit. Will whistles sharply, and the more adventurous dogs just out of sight come bounding back to rejoin the pack.

“I don’t know  _exactly_ ,” she says. “He just started telling me things. I guess after a while I started asking about things too.”

“ _He just started telling you things_ …” Will repeats, and the words taste like a lie. They would be, if they were his own. The idea that it could be so different – that things  _had_  been so different for Abigail – is a stretch even for his imagination. “What did you ask him?”

“Lots of things.” Abigail grins suddenly. “I asked some pretty obnoxious questions.”

“Why?”

“I had to, eventually,” she explains, smile fading a little. “To make sure he wasn’t going to murder me on a whim. It gets tiring being scared.”

“Yeah. It sure does.”

She worries her bottom lip for a moment, then says, “I asked him to tell me about the Copycat killings.”

Puzzled, Will watches her face carefully as he asks, “You were never mad at him for killing your friend?”

She shrugs again. “I never had the chance. I didn’t know it was him. By the time I found out, he was saving my life.” Her face gives nothing away, but her eyes dart to Will like she’s as curious about his response as he is about her answer.

“Did he tell you – did you only ask about the Copycat?”

Abigail moves past this a little too breezily. “I know there were others.” She whistles, and calls for the dogs by name before turning and leading them back towards the house.

It isn’t a very elegant method of changing the subject, but Abigail’s voice is so bright as she continues, Will can’t bring himself to press the topic.

“Anyway, he answered pretty much all my questions. And then he started talking about going abroad and told me to look up places I wanted to visit.”

“What about school?”

“He was weird about that.” She frowns slightly. “I asked if I would be applying to colleges, and he said I could if I wanted to but he didn’t think it would be necessary anymore.”

“Sounds ominous.”

“I know, right?!” She rolls her eyes. “I dunno… I don’t think he meant it to be. But I guess it’s kind of nuts to think Dr. Lecter ever said anything he didn’t mean.”

Will notes how Hannibal is  _Dr. Lecter_  in past tense, and wonders when the past became the present for her. He’s unsure about when that happened for himself, and curious if Hannibal ever found that line blurry. He clears his throat and opens his mouth, but Abigail answers his question before he can ask it.

“He didn’t tell me his plans for you. It was the one thing I was  _always_  afraid to ask about. After a while I just kind of…” She moves a little closer, so their elbows knock as the keep walking. “I thought maybe I’d never see you again.”

He squeezes her shoulder, thinking this must be the reason their embraces have happened so easily and so frequently in such a small amount of time. Both of them are simply verifying the other’s existence, not only in the world, but in  _their_  world. His arm around her is a continuation of this reassurance, for himself, at least. He thinks it could be a long time before he doesn’t need that anymore.

He lets the next question out into the world before he considers how it might sound. “He didn’t say if he was going to get me exonerated?”

 _Desperate._ It sounds desperate out loud.

Abigail shakes her head and looks apologetic.

Will forces a shrug and smiles minutely, insisting to himself that the answer doesn’t hurt.

“He told me other things… He told me about Dr. Bloom, and about Jack getting suspicious, and his  _rude_  behaviour at the dinner party.” She giggles. “He told me Chilton was wasting food. He was really annoyed about that.”

The tiny ache fluttering in his chest settles down, and Will laughs, picturing the scene all too clearly.

They are almost at the porch steps when Abigail suddenly asks, “Did anyone visit you in prison?”

Will is glad she doesn’t call it a hospital. “A few people. Until Bev died and I alienated everyone else.”

“Even Dr. Bloom?”

“Dr. Bloom wanted to save me,” he says, voice suddenly cold. “It wasn’t what I needed.” 

 

Jack calls on Sunday to tell Will to cancel his Monday and Tuesday lectures. “I’m going to need you all over this case for the next couple days.”

Abigail looks nonplussed when Will hangs up the phone after talking to administration at the Academy. “They let you back in the FBI as a teacher  _and_  a field agent? That’s… confusing.”

“Tell me about it. Want to go for a walk?”

She nods. “I missed being outside.”

Will takes them through the stand of trees at the back of the house and down the uneven path to the stream. In his absence it hadn’t been maintained, and the melting snow makes it slippery and muddy. It’s slow going.

A while later she adds, as though no time has passed, “In the daytime, I mean.”

“Hannibal let you go out at night?”

“I got to run errands.”

“Errands.”

“I was basically the getaway driver,” she explains. She smiles wide, and looks a little proud. When she sees his expression, however, her smile disappears. “What?”

“I just feel bad you’ve been trapped this whole time.”

“At least I wasn’t _actually_ locked up like you were. I mean, I got cabin fever sometimes, but then I’d just remember how awful it was being stuck at Port Haven. And I hardly miss people at all.”

When they reach the stream, Abigail walks right up to the edge of the embankment and looks out over the water, absolutely at peace. She looks back at him over her shoulder, smiling exactly the way he’d imagined in his dreams. Sweet and playful and happy.

“I missed you though,” she says, and her voice matches her smile.

He joins her and puts an arm around her again. She leans against him like all his dreams had been real and they’d stood here together a hundred times before.

“Hannibal gave me the present you bought for me. I liked it. Probably wouldn’t have at the time, though.” Will is struggling to catch on to what she’s talking about when she continues. “I’d like to learn how to fish. Would you still teach me?”

“I – yeah. But…”

Hannibal must have found the gift before the FBI tossed his place. He’d just assumed until now that it was in an evidence locker somewhere, along with a slew of other personal belongings he’d never get back. He doesn’t know what to think.

“He gave it to me the day they released you.”

“I just thought the FBI took it with all of my other fly-tying gear.”

“Don’t they give you your stuff back?”

“In theory.” He laughs, a little bitterly. “But you wouldn’t believe the amount of paperwork involved. It was difficult enough getting the pay I missed out on.”

“I’m glad he took it then,” Abigail says quietly.

“I think I am too.”

“He started to talk about you more after that. He said I’d see you soon and that… you’d be really happy…”

“But?”

“But I don’t think he had a plan for you. Not the way he does for everything and everyone else. You know, down to the last ridiculous detail. I guess that makes you pretty special.”

“Or completely disposable,” Will says darkly.

Abigail doesn’t find if funny. “Don’t say that. There’s  _no_  way. His exact words were,  _I can never entirely predict him_. He said it like he admired you just for that.”

Will doesn’t know how to respond, so he doesn’t say anything, and they walk back to the house in silence.

 

“Can’t I just stay here, now that you know?” Abigail asks over their dinner of baked beans on toast.

“You’ll get very skinny.”

“I could cook…” She says it without much conviction, knowing that they’d still end up being skinny.

“You shouldn’t drive back and forth when it’s light out. You could stay here on weekends.”

“Sounds like joint custody.”

“It kind of is, isn’t it?”

“Will you at least come for dinner more during the week?” She doesn’t bother to censor out the whininess in her voice.

Will chuckles around his toast. “Have you asked Hannibal if that’s alright or are you just offering his services?”

“I’m pretty sure you’re always invited.”

He smiles and chews, shaking his head. “Abigail, I know it’s been a while, so maybe you’ve forgotten what I’m like.”

She rolls her eyes. “What are you like?”

“Not very desirable company.”

“I don’t think you have to worry about that.”

“The last time Hannibal had Jack and me over for dinner, I felt like I’d overstayed my welcome after about five minutes.”

Abigail shrugs and says, casually, “You were probably just embarrassed because it was the first time you called Hannibal  _Hannibal_  to his face.”

Will forgets to chew for a moment, then quickly finishes that mouthful, swallows, and says, “What?”

“He told me about it. The night you brought trout, and made the quip about it being your turn to provide the meat?” She looks amused.

“Why?” is all he can come up with.

“He was trying to decide if you’d done it on purpose to make a point, or if it was a slip of the tongue.”

“You’re his secret sounding board?”

“Well it’s not like I would have been able to tell anyone. And I notice things. I think maybe he likes that about me.”

Will shakes his head, but in bemusement rather than in response. He gives her a half-smile and says, “I guess that makes  _you_  pretty special.”

“Being Hannibal Lecter’s secret – or special –  _anything_  is a lot less glamorous than it sounds. But if it’s what kept me alive…”

Will raises an eyebrow, a knowing look on his face.

“Okay, so it was also kinda fun,” she admits, both flushing, and smiling impishly. “I mean, for the longest time I thought he was a robot. Or a pod-person.”

Will gives a snort of laughter, but remains visibly perplexed. “I don’t even remember doing that. Not sure I like how deep your discussions about me go.”

“Even though I’m not a psychiatrist?”

“Yet.”

“Maybe I should consider it. The FBI obviously isn’t an option for me any more, if it ever was.”

“Being in the FBI isn’t as glamorous as it sounds either.”

 

As if to prove the point, Will finds himself in a shouting match with Jack Crawford first thing Monday morning. As promised, a stack of files awaits him when he arrives at Quantico, but that is literally all there is.

“So let me get this straight,” Will says, voice raised insubordinately. “We’ve had  _no_  requests from any state officials, so we’re not authorized to investigate this  _at all_ , and we’re not even sure this is a serial killer? Are you trying to get Kade Prunell to move into your office?”

“Careful, Will,” Jack warns.

Will laughs disbelievingly. “You’ve lost the plot, Jack. What are you even after here?”

“I’m after a  _serial killer_ ,” Jack barks. “One that  _I’ve_ authorized you to look into. Those requests will be coming, and I don’t want any time wasted when they do.”

“So now I’m cancelling classes based on your hunches. I’m not a zealot when it comes to the curriculum, Jack, but I preferred it when those hunches were sanctified by the organization employing me.”

Zeller and Price enter the room, but stop in their tracks at Jack’s thundering.

“You’re out of line, Will. You get to work on this, and you do it  _out of my sight_.”

The new arrivals look rather like they’ve forgotten why they’d come in. “What’s going on?”

“Ask Jack,” Will spits, making for the door.

Despite appearing lost and mildly alarmed, Zeller sets his hands on his hips, jutting out his elbow at the last second, so it catches Will in the stomach as he storms out with the files.

 

He spends all morning looking through the glaringly inadequate information and, unsurprisingly, comes up empty. In light of this, Will is already in a foul mood when he meets up with Freddie Lounds at noon. They sit at the end of the long conference room table in the BAU headquarters.

“How was my funeral?” she asks, smirking.

“There was a surprisingly good turnout,” Will says, working to keep his voice even.

“I have a dedicated readership.” She stirs some cream into her coffee and licks her spoon in the same complacent way she does everything.

“ _Had_.”

She ignores his comment and tilts her head slightly, looking at him curiously. “Jack thinks you’ve gone rogue.”

“Jack would  _like_  to think that. What Jack  _actually_  thinks is that I’m a damaged undercover operative, and that he’s smarter than anybody else who might be trying to manipulate me.”

“ _Anybody else_  being Hannibal Lecter.”

“My suspicions about Dr. Lecter haven’t changed. There’s just a larger picture forming.”

She looks intrigued, and mischievous. “Does this  _larger picture_  have anything to do with why I’m still pretending to be dead?”

“I need Jack off my back for a while to get a grip on it.”

“So I’m your buffer?”

“Think you can manage that?”

Freddie is practically leering at him now. “Yes.” Her smirk widens. “You know what else I think?”

“What’s that, Freddie?”

“I think Abigail Hobbs is still alive.”

Will looks at her sharply and _just_ manages to keep his jaw from dropping.

“Don’t worry,” she assures him, calmly sipping her coffee. “I’ve learned my lesson about running unconfirmed stories. Not that I can run any stories while I’m dead.”

“If you think Abigail’s alive, why haven’t you talked to Jack?”

“Remember that conversation we had about the list?”

“How is that relevant now?”

Freddie looks at him like he’s slow. “Jack isn’t calculating enough to be considered one of us psychopaths.” When she speaks again, it quickly becomes clear why she sounds so derisive. “Yesterday, he brought in Alana Bloom on this. You remember her – the doctor  _sleeping with Hannibal Lecter_? I can’t see that as anything other than a major lapse in judgement.”

Alana has been tagging along to crime scenes since she’d started suspecting Will of killing Randall Tier. Will doesn’t know what she hopes to get out of the experience, but her presence has increased since Freddie’s “death.” She was  _supposed_  to get suspicious. It was supposed to help his cover.

Will wonders for a moment if Jack really has lost it. Maybe Bella is getting worse, and it’s driving him over the cliff’s edge with no thought of what’s at the end of the fall. Maybe he’s just had enough and is trying to get fired. Neither of these explanations is satisfactory, and Will thinks it’s a good thing his plans are no longer dependent on Jack’s support. Christ, a  _tabloid_  journalist thinks Jack is being inappropriate.

“Well, I can’t say I know what the hell he was thinking.”

“He _wasn’t_ ,” Freddie answers, rightfully scornful in Will’s estimation. “People don’t make such monumental mistakes without a history of poor planning and foresight.”

“So do you not trust Jack? Or do you just prefer the company of psychopaths?”

“A bit of both. I think you can relate.” She leans back in her chair and smiles over her coffee, looking extremely satisfied. After a while she says, conversationally, “I’m going to enjoy my resurrection.”

Will rubs his chin and thinks of ways to entreat Freddie Lounds. He decides not to get flowery about it and settles for,  _Don’t write about Abigail_ , knowing she will if she damn well pleases.

However, when Freddie stares at him this time, she doesn’t look so smug. She still looks curious, but there is definitely a hint of humanity in her gaze. “You really don’t know if you’re going to survive him, do you?”

“I don’t know if we’ll survive each other.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

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	3. Systematic Empathy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Abigail affectionately gives Will shit. Will gets his priorities straight. Alana fucks off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta'd by my beautiful murderwife, Kate ([asprigofzest](http://archiveofourown.org/users/asprigofzest/pseuds/asprigofzest) on A03, [@weesprigofzest](http://weesprigofzest.tumblr.com) on tumblr).

Will heads home soon after talking with Freddie. He doesn’t ask Jack to be dismissed, but he does take the files with him to assuage any guilt he might feel later on. On the drive back to Wolf Trap, he thinks about rescheduling his lectures just to piss Jack off, but that’s a dangerous game. Abigail can’t get caught because Will doesn’t like Jack telling him what to do.

Abigail is sitting on the porch steps, wrapped up in a blanket with a book in her lap. All the dogs except Winston are bounding around in front of the house happily. Abigail occasionally throws sticks for the more tenacious ones that bring them to her in their sloppy mouths with eyes she can’t say no to. Winston sits on the porch just behind her with his chin drooping onto her shoulder. He blinks contentedly, and it almost looks like he’s reading too.

Will takes a moment to enjoy the scene before getting out of the car. He has to hold the files over his head to avoid them getting sniffed and slobbered on when his pack attacks him with their usual greeting.

“What are you reading?” he asks Abigail, pausing on the steps before going inside.

She closes the book on her finger so he can see the cover. It’s an illustrated encyclopedia of the local wildlife. It’s thick, and every page has at least one detailed drawing. It had clearly been the author’s life’s work.

“It looks like a labour of love,” she says. “It’s beautiful.”

Will agrees. The jacket is well worn from being taken down and put back up on the bookshelf so often. Abigail doesn’t tell him that that’s why she chose it – that she’d picked it out as obviously the one he reads most, and had decided it would be the one she’d read first.

“Hannibal called and asked if you’d be driving me back to Baltimore tonight.”

“I can do that.”

“He said he’d make dinner for all of us.”

“And you accepted.”

“Yep.”

He sighs resignedly. “What time?”

“Seven.”

“Be ready by quarter to six then?”

She nods. As he opens the front door, she says, “You should wear a different shirt.”

He looks back at her, but she’s looking down at the book again with a secretive smile.

 

At the door, he dumps his briefcase – useless, since he hadn’t taught today. He takes the files into the living room and spreads them out on the coffee table. Winston has followed him inside and hops up onto the couch next to him, looking back and forth between the mess of papers and his master’s face as though asking,  _Can I help?_

“Jack would probably prefer you on the case right now.”

Winston yawns.

“My sentiments exactly.”

Will drags his eyes over each of the first officer’s reports – all they could get without further authorization. Rope burns were found on all the victims, and they were all men in their late forties. That’s all the commonality Will can see between them. Either Will is missing something, or Jack has hit the self-destruct button and is taking Will out with him.

 

“Time to get up,” Abigail says, when she walks into the living room to find Will fast asleep on the couch, still sitting up with some report or another held loosely in one hand. His other hand has been commandeered by Winston, who has nosed his way underneath its weight.

Will groans and stretches. “I didn’t mean to fall asleep.”

“You kind of always look like you need it.”

“Thank you, Abigail.”

She laughs. “I actually wasn’t trying to be a jerk. You just seem tired a lot. But seriously, change your shirt.”

“Why?” Will complains.

Abigail just blinks at him.

He grumbles, but does as she orders.

Not for the last time she thinks,  _Part of his charm, I guess._

 

Will is surprised when she brings up Thursday night in the car on the drive over to Hannibal’s. All weekend she’d seemed so relaxed, Will assumed she hadn’t heard the conversation between Hannibal and him after all.

“Are you really going to kill Freddie Lounds?”

“Not unless she comes after you. I talked to her just this afternoon. Are you worried about that?”

“Not about Freddie, specifically.” The car is quiet while Abigail gathers her words. “I guess I’m just wondering how much like Hannibal you are. And… how much like my dad.”

Will chews on that for a while. It doesn’t really feel like there’s a right or wrong answer. “I wonder that a lot, myself. Maybe I’m more like both of them than I realize.”

“Does that scare you?”

“Oddly, no. I don’t feel like I’m in danger of losing myself anymore. I know who I am.”

“Who are you?”

He glances at her with a vaguely sardonic smile. “Not someone who’s going to run around killing journalists just because they’re annoying.”

Abigail chuckles. “So really, then, when you said you’d kill her, that was–?”

“A promise to protect you, yes.”

“Why, thank you. Not actually what I was going to say though.” She sounds amused. “I was  _going_  to say that it was you pledging your allegiance.”

“Same thing.”

“Not pledging it to  _me_.” The amusement in her tone garners an edge of exasperation.

“Abigail, what are you driving at here?”

She lets out a frustrated sigh. “That I can’t be the  _only_  reason you suddenly jumped ship.”

“Why can’t you be?” he asks, annoyingly.

“Because I don’t accept that,” she retorts, aiming to be just as annoying.

After a few minutes of Abigail sitting in a huffy silence, Will says, “Explain how you see this.” It’s a request.

She adjusts herself in her seat and he can feel her gaze on him the entire time she’s talking. “I see this as the best possible thing for all of us. I think that  _at least_  half of you already wanted to run off with Hannibal, so you were putting off making any decisions ’til the last minute. I just tipped the scales in Hannibal’s favour.”

“It doesn’t bother you? Being used to tip the scales?”

“Are you kidding?” Abigail laughs incredulously. She’s getting worked up, and doesn’t intend to dial it back. “I’m  _alive_ , for one thing. And I’m important enough to someone that I  _can_  tip the scales.” Settling back in her seat, she adds, “Maybe to two people.”

“You’re important enough to me that you changed everything.” Will can see out of the corner of his eye that she’s about to protest some more, and takes preventative measures. “I’m not  _denying_  being torn to begin with...” He pauses and swallows down the lump of panic rising in his chest, admitting it aloud. “Being Hannibal’s friend is…”

“Complicated?” she offers.

That brings a smile to his lips. “To say the least.”

“Okay, I can see that,” she concedes. “I’m kind of glad I only have to fill the daughter role. With you, he’s all  _battle-tested friendships_  and  _conquering Troy_  and stuff.”

Will laughs out loud at her astuteness.

“I guess it doesn’t really matter whether or not you wanted to run away before. As long as you’re promising to now.” Her sweet, happy smile becomes mischievous as she adds, “You two conquer Troy on your own time.”

The rest of the drive passes in comfortable silence, and Abigail is pleased to see that Will looks contemplative. She leans back in her seat and, for a while, just daydreams about the three of them.  _Finally a family. Finally free. Somewhere in France, maybe, or Italy_ …

 

“This is delicious,” Will says around a mouthful of ragout and saffron rice. “Thank you.” He looks at Hannibal and offers a quick, appreciative smile.

Hannibal inclines his head in acknowledgement and returns the smile. His is a little less fleeting.

Abigail looks between the two of them. “Prison’s kind of a weird place to learn how to make eye contact,” she comments.

Will furrows his brow. “What?”

“You never used to look at anyone directly.”

“Eye contact is an acquired taste,” Will replies dryly. “But it’s really your only weapon when you’re having a standoff with your therapist through the bars of a cell.” The corner of his mouth turns up minutely before he takes a sip of wine.

Hannibal chuckles. “It wasn’t  _your_  only weapon.”

“It was with you.”

Hannibal gives a slight, elegant shrug of his shoulders. “Perhaps. By then, I was used to repressing any urge to psychoanalyze you.”

Abigail is lost. Will begins to clarify for her. “I’ve had more than one therapist over the years. Three just while I was locked up, if you count Dr. Bloom.”

“Do you?” Hannibal asks with interest.

“Yes.”

Hannibal turns back to Abigail and continues the explanation, perhaps filing that information away to discuss at a later time. “You could say that Will has been courted by a number of psychiatrists – a large number. All apparently undeterred by Will’s… resistant nature.”

“That’s a euphemism for  _aggressive defensiveness_ ,” says Will.

Abigail smirks. “I know.”

Hannibal raises his eyebrows, perhaps surprised by Abigail’s cheekiness, or by Will’s amusement at it.

“So why all the courting? Was it the encephalitis?” Abigail presses.

“It  _was_  a rare type of encephalitis but, no, that is not the reason. I believe you’d already accumulated the interest of professionals in several disciplines.” Hannibal looks to Will, as though for verification.

“You could say that…” In an internal struggle that lasts long enough for Will to finish his second glass of wine, his desire to talk about whatever Abigail wants to talk about combats his much more deeply ingrained desire to talk about anything  _but_  this. “I came out of the NOPD with the tags  _empathy disorder_  and  _Asperger’s_.” He refills his glass and absently tops up Hannibal’s. “It got worse when I went to work for the Bureau.”

Abigail swats Will’s hand away when he goes to refill her glass as well. “Explain.”

“Psychiatrists and psychologists want to do studies on Will because they see him as an anomaly – a paradox even.” Hannibal sets his wine glass down and monopolizes the conversation for a while, rather than waiting for Will to overcome his general reluctance. “The empathizing-systemizing theory suggests two extreme personality types and three intermediate ones. The theory is, in my opinion, banally two-dimensional and overly-applied. However, Will does exhibit traits from both poles of the spectrum, thus baffling subscribing scholars everywhere.”

“I empathize systematically,” Will summarizes. “Apparently that merits dissection.”

Abigail shakes her head. “You’re only allowed to fit into one box?”

“Idealistically, yes,” Hannibal answers. “Though that would render my profession obsolete.”

Will bites back the words  _which profession?_ Instead, he says, “You can fit more than one, but then you go from having a personality  _type_  to having a personality  _disorder_.”

“What?”

Will heaves a heavy sigh and puts down his fork. Evidently, Abigail is determined to get more than a cursory explanation out of him. “People think I have some form of Asperger syndrome because I don’t socialize well. They think I have an empathy disorder because I have too many mirror neurons. But one of the facets of being empathetic is responding appropriately within a situation – not a skill usually attributed to people with Asperger’s.” Will shrugs and concludes, “I’m not really sure where they’ve landed on all that.”

“ _Somewhere on the spectrum_ is, I believe, the last major advance in the field of Will Graham’s mind,” Hannibal says, eyes twinkling in amusement.

“It’s easier not to correct people.”

Abigail raises her eyebrows. “Well I can see why you prefer being alone.”

“People like Jack don’t help,” Hannibal adds, extending the discussion, to Will’s dismay. “They view Will’s specific way of thinking as a gift one minute and a disability the next.”

Abigail shakes her head again. “I’d be really annoyed if I were you,” she says to Will.

“Why’s that?”

“It sounds like people either see you as a science experiment or a tool. Or they feel sorry for you.”

“I do get a lot of pitying looks…”

“People should feel sorry for you if you’re  _suffering_ , not if you’re just being you – even if you  _did_  have Asperger’s, that wouldn’t necessarily mean you were suffering.” Abigail’s voice takes on the same fervor it had when she’d lectured Will in the car. “They shouldn’t assume that just because you’re alone, you’re lonely, or just because you don’t talk, you have poor interpersonal skills.”

“I  _do_  have poor interpersonal skills.”

“Not with everybody. Not with me.”

Will shuts up.

“Poor, damaged Will Graham with his personality disorders and mirror neurons or whatever,” she says sarcastically. “It would drive me crazy.” She pauses, and grins. “ _Actually_  crazy,” she amends.

Will smiles as well. Bev hadn’t felt sorry for him either. She’d said he was  _a little different_ , and managed to do it without sounding like she was sugarcoating. She’d said it like there wasn’t anything _to_ sugarcoat. It had been a refreshing change.

Hannibal is watching their exchange attentively. Abigail looks at him, then at Will. “So, basically, you overcame your no-eye-contact  _disorder_  because you and Hannibal got in a fight?”

Hannibal gives Will a small smirk, which Will ostensibly doesn’t see.

“Eyes are the least of my worries. I have bigger problems now.” Will clears his plate, still smiling. “Bigger, Abigail-shaped problems.”

Buried in the jibe is a compliment, and Abigail knows it.

 

They sit in the study after dinner. Hannibal uncorks a fresh bottle of wine – a richer, smoother wine,  _meant_  to be drunk in a study after dinner, in winged leather armchairs by a fire. The silence isn’t entirely comfortable, but it isn’t _un_ comfortable. For some reason, this surprises Will. After a while, he asks quietly, “What’s the plan here, Hannibal?”

“My plans haven’t changed,” Hannibal answers mildly, but pointedly.

Abigail visibly rolls her eyes, but keeps the verbal sass to herself as she leaves them to their passive-aggressive wordplay, and goes to the kitchen to clean up the dinner mess.

Will can’t help but smile at her yet again when she passes.

“Abigail sees you as you are,” Hannibal observes. “That must feel good after a long day in the trenches with Jack and Alana.”

Will is silent for a long time. When he does speak, it’s to say, “I don’t want you to kill Alana.” He doesn’t specify his preference concerning Jack.

Seemingly unsurprised by the new direction their conversation is taking, Hannibal notes casually, “Alana betrayed you.”

“ _You_  betrayed me.”

“And you want me to live? Or you no longer want to be the one to kill me?”

“ _Yes_ , I think is the answer to that.”

Hannibal only tilts his head slightly before he lifts his glass and scents the wine. Will takes that to mean  _I’ll think about it_ , or  _I’m thinking_ , or  _I’ve decided, but I’m not going to tell you_. It doesn’t really matter. He doesn’t fool himself for a moment that Alana’s fate lies in his hands. If Hannibal wants to spare her, he will. Will’s being in love with her (ineffectively) for a few years amounts to nothing next to the façade of friendship she and Hannibal have.

It spans at least a decade, and if she’s anyone’s to keep or dispose of, she’s Hannibal’s. They were mentor and student; they built their careers in the elite, lucrative field of modern psychiatry; they wove in and out of each other’s lives, celebrating their various accomplishments, getting together any time one or the other was in town. Now, living and working in the same city, their sophisticated palates and love of cooking bring them together at least twice a week. And they are lovers, only for a few months now, but long enough.

Alana isn’t Abigail, and even if Will begs, Hannibal won’t accept that the decision is anyone’s to make but his own. Alana isn’t Will’s priority anymore. She isn’t his charge, or even his friend. If he’s only allowed to save one life at a time, he’ll choose Abigail’s. First and last, and every time in between.

They don’t return to the topic of a plan.

 

The day before Alana moves away, she drives out to Wolf Trap to say goodbye to Will. He’s standing on the porch, coffee in one hand, throwing sticks for his pack with the other when she pulls up to the little house. She gets out of the car but makes no move towards the porch, just huddles there in her dusky blue pea coat, wind chafing her cheeks.

Will gathers that it’s his move now, so he sets down his coffee. Abigail is in the house and, unless she has the hearing of a bat, she wouldn’t have heard Alana’s damn hybrid approaching. He goes to the door and pulls it shut loudly, hoping Abigail would sense a warning, and Alana would sense nothing. For good measure, he says, “I always leave it open too long. All the cold gets in.” She doesn’t respond to that. She looks so objectively lovely that, as he crunches over the frosted grass towards her, he thinks, in some other world, this must be painful.

As he nears her, they exchange small smiles, and allow the unspoken  _truce_  to hang in the air. “I haven’t seen you at Quantico in a while,” Alana says.

They both know why. They both pretend they don’t.

Will shrugs. “Enrollment at the Academy was low this term. I only had three classes to teach.”

“Caught you on your day off.” She crouches down to receive the swarm of dogs. They definitely remember her. They’d probably been confused about seeing her every day for months, and then not at all. She takes the sloppy licks and accidental whacks of excited tails against her face with a giggle and some affectionate murmurs.

Recognizing once again that the scene is lovely, but not feeling much of anything, he replies, simply, “It’s nice to have one in the middle of the week.”

“Jack isn’t trying to… use that to his advantage?” She cocks her head to the side and puts a hand on her hip when she stands back up, as though she can’t believe Will’s phone hasn’t rung at least five times since she’d arrived.

Will lets out a faint chuckle. “I keep expecting to see a black SUV in my driveway whenever I look out the window,” he admits. “But Jack has been staying away, and he prefers to yell at me in person.”

“You must have really pissed him off this time,” she says, smile a little friendlier.

_Had he ever._

They stand awkwardly for a few seconds, adjusting to the decreased levels of animosity in the air between them. Something catches Alana’s eye and she looks to the house. Hopefully just a shadow, not a face.

By the way she purses her lips and flares her nostrils in order not to smile too widely, he can tell she hadn’t seen Abigail. She is interpreting the presence of another human being in the house and his not mentioning it as something else – and Will has to stop himself from rolling his eyes at how pleased she looks.

Instead, he says, “I’d invite you in for coffee, but you appear to be stuck to your car.”

She blushes, and resumes their conversation. “Next term might be a little busier for you, speaking of the FBI.”

“Do we ever really talk about anything else?” he asks wryly.

“I guess not.” She clears her throat. “I’m moving away.”

He nods. He’d heard rumors. He hadn’t asked questions. He supposes he should now. “Teaching or research?”

“A bit of both. It’s a dream come true really. I’m not sure how it happened.”

Will is pretty sure he knows how it happened. “Where?”

“Actually, I got letters from both Harvard and the University of Chicago.” She says it demurely, but she’s obviously very pleased. “It took a while to decide, but I’m going with UC.”

He raises his eyebrows at her.

“Okay, it didn’t take that long to decide.” She looks sheepish. “UC says that with my record they can grant me tenure within a year, and they may have hinted at a long term project that needs heading.”

Will smiles, and means it when he says, “That’s great, Alana. You deserve this.”

“Thank you,” she says. Then, embarrassed, “I’m leaving tomorrow.”

Will nods for no reason.

“I wanted to tell you sooner, but I haven’t seen you at work, and we don’t really–”

“–do friendly visits anymore.”

Alana nods, and then looks peeved, though not to the extent he knows she’s capable of. “You do that a lot, Will – finish other people’s sentences. I don’t think you mean to be rude… Are you just trying to avoid hearing certain things?”

“Is psychoanalyzing me your way of telling me you’re still mad?”

“Maybe I’m just getting in a quick session while I still can.”

“Still not your patient,” he says lightly, and shakes his head. “I appreciate that you didn’t do that before now. But I’d rather our last words before you go not be speculative.”

Alana nods. “Since we won’t be seeing each other for a long time.”

“No,” Will says quietly. “We won’t.” After some more awkward silence, he asks, “What about you and Hannibal?”

She drops her gaze to the icy ground. “Back to the way it used to be, I guess.” When she lifts her eyes again, she looks over at the dogs, rather than at Will. “I’ve already had a good cry about it. I think we’ll always be better colleagues and friends than a couple. I don’t know him as well as I thought I did, and I think he’s just fine with keeping it that way.” Her smile is sad, but not irreparably so in the face of so much opportunity.

Will is aware Alana hadn’t thought much of Jack and his plan, and, now that she’s leaving, he’s glad. It wouldn’t be much of a fresh start if she entered her new life already sullied with unpleasant truths. It’s better for her to leave blind. Still loving Hannibal. Still doubting Will.

“In answer to your question… I’m not mad, Will. Not anymore. I’m moving on.” Then, in the voice of the Alana he remembers from a year ago – his friend, his buffer, and, quite often, his conscience – she softly says, “I think you should too.”

He considers telling her he already has, but thinks it might be hurtful. He considers telling her he’d miss her, but thinks it might be a lie. He considers telling her something cryptic to recall later, but thinks it might be pointless. He and Alana aren’t playing the same game. They never had been.

He settles on giving her a shadow of the warm smile he used to reserve for her alone, and holds out his hand. “Good luck in Chicago, Alana. You’ll be great.” She will be. She will be great, and she will be far away.

Alana pulls off one of her mittens to take his hand and squeeze it, lowering her gaze to where their flesh touches. For a moment she hesitates and he thinks she might hug him, or rest her other hand on his cheek like she’d done when she thought he was just unstable, not a monster. She does neither. Her eyes are bright, however, and voice slightly breathy when she says, “Take care, Will.”

Will closes the car door behind her. She doesn’t look at him again, but nods once, tears in her eyes as she starts the engine and turns the car around. For a fleeting moment, it reminds him of another goodbye – one from another lifetime. As Alana drives away, she squares her shoulders and huffs a deep breath, and Will sees that the tears don’t fall. He imagines that by the time she reaches the main road, she will be smiling again, shedding the blanket of doubt she’d been holding about herself for months, eager to start her new life. It makes him smile too.

 

Abigail stays in Wolf Trap when Will drives out to Baltimore that evening, saying, absurdly, that she _needs some time to herself_. Will isn’t sure if he’s irritated or relieved by her deliberate transparency.

During his session, Will airs his grievances about the new case and Jack’s escalating sense of entitlement when it comes to his time and focus. Hannibal suggests that whenever Will takes on a new case, Jack should be required to take on one of Will’s classes. Will grins at the idea of Jack standing at a lectern, bellowing at the trainees, all of whom would probably rethink their career choice.

Since they’ve moved from the realm of therapy into simple conversation, Will brings up the idea of Abigail staying in Wolf Trap on weekends. He feels bad that he hadn’t done so until now, although it hardly seems to matter, as Abigail finds a way to stay in Wolf Trap whenever she likes.

“Abigail may do as she pleases. I believe she will exercise caution. Did she make any other requests?”

“That I come over for dinner more often.”

As if cued by his words, the clock chimes the end of their hour.

 

Will does have dinner with Hannibal that night and, visualizing the smirk he’ll be greeted with back in Wolf Trap, he vows to tell Abigail that they only talked about work.

“You have friends in Chicago. And Cambridge,” Will says, partway through their brined and roasted –  _whatever_.

“I wouldn’t call them friends,” Hannibal replies.

“Of course not.” Will should have known Hannibal would argue semantics. “I meant you have  _influence_  in Chicago.” When discussing anything he’d rather not discuss, Hannibal makes sure the other person is just as irritated as he is for the course of the conversation. He has done this a thousand times with Will, and Will had walked right into it again tonight.

“Was that a question, Will?” Hannibal asks archly.

“Not really. More a comment on the long arm of Dr. Lecter. Clever, giving her a choice. You distracted her with apparent options, so she would think leaving was her idea –  Did you know she’d pick UC?”

Realizing this is not a confrontation, Hannibal drops the pedantry. “I suspected. I knew what UC was willing to offer her, and I knew that Harvard wasn’t going to match it, even with Dr. Heimlich on the board.”

Will nods and looks satisfied but, for whatever reason, Hannibal continues.

“I needed Alana to vouch for the best in me. And now,  _we_  need her gone. She’ll convince herself she wants a life with me.” He sips his wine and adds, “She’s quite brilliant, but her psychiatric prowess doesn’t extend inwards.”

Will has nothing to say in either protestation or agreement, so he says nothing. He feels Hannibal’s eyes on him, studying his face, dissecting his expression. Part of him wants to adopt some countenance worth dissecting, but he is relaxed for a change, and comfortable, and opts to stay that way instead.

“Alana is impressionable. I might even go so far as to say fickle.” Hannibal carries on, musing now. “If I could ensure I would be the  _only_  one influencing her… but that isn’t possible.”

“You… entertained that idea though? Imagined taking that avenue?”

“It was one of the alternatives to killing her, which you asked me not to do,” Hannibal answers simply.

Will is at ease, and thoughtful. After a while, he says, “What you did wasn’t just clever. She was happy when she left. It was kind.”

“Will, I would appreciate it if you didn’t throw accusations around at the dinner table,” Hannibal deadpans.

Will laughs out loud, and they both smile and keep smiling through the rest of dinner, dessert, and a finger of whiskey to warm Will for the drive home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

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	4. Purposeful Affection

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Abigail gets restless and snippy. The Murder Family realize actual plans must be made. More things happen in the philosophical and adorable departments. Hannibal continues to become hopelessly fond of the two of them and tries not to fuck it up too much. Will thinks about Bev and gets super sad.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta'd by my beautiful murderwife, Kate ([asprigofzest](http://archiveofourown.org/users/asprigofzest/pseuds/asprigofzest) on A03, [@weesprigofzest](http://weesprigofzest.tumblr.com) on tumblr).

Over the next few weeks, Abigail takes barely perceptible steps in manipulating her living arrangements. Will’s  _weekends only_  suggestion is silently overruled as she subtly starts adding weekdays on either side. The dogs become her charges. She feeds, walks, and washes them. When vet visits are the only responsibility left to Will, she knows she’s played a good game.

She’s slightly hurt that Hannibal doesn’t seem to mind, or even _notice_ that she spends most of her time at Will’s, but this is cancelled out by the warmth of seven furry bodies, and the smile she receives when Will comes home to find she’s still there.

Seeing how much Abigail loves the dogs, and the freedom to wander around outside in broad daylight, makes Will feel a little less guilty about the fact that she’s still essentially in hiding, with only Hannibal, himself, and a pack of canines for company. She seems content, for now, but his own unease at this limbo they’re in puts out tendrils. Will thinks she’ll start to feel them coil around her, and the thought makes him more uneasy still. She’s already been in limbo for months.

Abigail enters the kitchen to find Will paused in the act of putting away groceries. He buys more vegetables now, though he has no idea what to do with them and neither does she. Most of their meals are born from a vague hope that, between the two of them, they can concoct something edible and halfway healthy. They usually do, and they manage to stave off the skinny future Will had predicted; though it’s never anything particularly creative, and eating at Will’s is still a purely functional activity. They save their real appetites for dinners at Hannibal’s.

Will stands with one hand on the handle of the refrigerator and the other wrapped around a fairly abused-looking red pepper. Abigail walks over and toes the fridge door closed to get his attention. She’s about to make a quip about his carbon footprint when she sees how serious he looks.

“What are you thinking about?”

Will looks at her thoughtfully. He wants to ask her if she’s happier now, or if she still trusts them, or how long she’s willing to put up with being “dead.” What he comes out with is, “Where do you want to go, when we leave?”

Abigail visibly brightens at this mention of their future, and his stomach unknots just a little bit.

“To visit? Or to live?” she asks as she helps him put away their provisions. She doesn’t dare think of them as ingredients, in case Hannibal can read minds and is affronted by the idea.

“Both. Coffee?”

“No, thank you.”

“Tea?”

“Yes, please.”

With the coffee percolating and the kettle set to boil, they lean against opposite counters and muse.

“If we’re going to travel, I don’t think we’ll get to choose where. I bet Hannibal is already planning a guided tour of Europe.”

Will grins. “Well, I think he’s the only one of us qualified to do that.”

“It’s fine with me. I don’t know what I’d want to see even.”

“Okay.” Will nods. “What about to live?”

“Corleone in Italy, or Puerto Madryn in Argentina.” She smiles at Will’s expression. “I’ve had a lot of time to narrow it down. What about you?”

Will shrugs. “All I need’s a stream.”

Abigail chuckles, and nudges past him to get cups for their drinks. “That’s a terrible answer.”

 

Hannibal brings them dinner the next evening. Just for a second, when he opens the door, Will feels as though he’s being audited. Then the aroma of whatever is in the covered bowl Hannibal carries somehow permeates the ceramic. A message is sent from his nose directly to his stomach and it starts to growl immediately. If this visit is one of their games, Hannibal has already won.

Abigail doesn’t provide her usual commentary over dinner, and Will wonders why Winston is curled protectively around her ankles instead of begging.

“Alright, Abigail?”

Abigail nods. Abruptly, she asks, “Can I go somewhere?”

Hannibal raises an eyebrow. “Do you have somewhere in mind?”

“I thought the library.”

“The library,” Will repeats. “Abigail, you’ve been in Hannibal’s house, right?”

“Not for the books,” she says, her voice growing quieter. “To be around people. Just to remind myself what it’s like.” She doesn’t purposely phrase it so manipulatively, but old habits die hard, and she hears herself talking like she used to talk to Dr. Bloom. She grinds her teeth a little. “Sorry.”

“Are you lonely, Abigail?” Hannibal asks tonelessly.

“No,” she answers firmly. “I wouldn’t risk it if I were lonely.”

Hannibal seems pleased with that.

“Why the library?” asks Will.

She has a remarkably practical answer, and he wonders how long she’s been sitting on this idea.

“There won’t be that many people, not like at a mall or restaurant. And the people that _are_ there will be reading or looking through bookshelves. No one will notice me.”

As though he is the one asking permission to go on a field trip, Will finds himself instinctively looking to Hannibal.

“Just one day?” Following Will’s lead, Abigail turns to Hannibal, directing the question at him. “I’ll probably remember I hate it... and I won’t ask to do it again.” Her eyes flick up to meet his. She feels that it’s important for him to know she’s only asking this one time. “Please?”

Hannibal takes his time responding, despite Abigail’s pressing gaze. “I can drop you off at the district library,” he says slowly. “I would feel more comfortable with you going there than to the central library.”

Needlessly, Will adds, “Wear a hoodie.”

After Hannibal leaves, Will asks Abigail, “Why didn’t you say something before? I could have taken you.”

“I thought the feeling would go away after a while. I didn’t want Hannibal to think  _give her an inch, she’ll take a mile_. And I didn’t want you to think I was bored.”

“Don’t worry about what I think.”

“ _You_  worry about what  _I_  think.”

Will yawns and stretches out on the couch. “Answer for everything,” he says fondly, unable to sound even remotely annoyed.

Abigail retrieves the wildlife encyclopedia from the bookshelf and flops down in the armchair across from him, quiet for a while as she flicks through it. When she does speak, a few minutes later, she doesn’t look up. “You don’t have to worry,” she says, matter-of-factly. “I’m excited about leaving, but this is nice too.”

 

“You’re people-watching,” Will observes, walking up the broad steps of the small district library. It isn’t quite five o’ clock, but Abigail is already waiting for him, chin cupped in her hands, eyes slightly narrowed as she scrutinizes each passer-by.

“At the hospital I got bored if I didn’t.”

“Most people are so easy to read, though,” he says, dropping down to sit on the step below her. 

“They broadcast their emotions,” Abigail agrees. “And the things they want – even when they think they’re being subtle.”

She sounds annoyed, and Will thinks she probably has no patience for the victimized, now that Alana isn’t around to coax her into sympathy or guilt. He hears Alana’s phrasing with the meaning slightly skewed.

“You and Hannibal are different,” she says. “Difficult, even – especially when you’re trying to play each other.” Her mouth quirks up at the corners. “It’s pretty funny sometimes.”

“Well gosh, Abigail, I’m glad we amuse you.”

She sighs. “I just mean that… I don’t usually find people that interesting. And it’s lonely. You’d think it’d be lonelier, not being able to read you, but it’s isn’t. I like that you guys don’t wear your hearts on your sleeves.”

“That’s not really what it sounds like you mean.”

Abigail sounds mischievous when she asks, “What do I sound like, Will?”

“You sound like a snob,” he replies. Pretty indelicate. Inwardly, Will sighs at his own lack of tact.

Abigail laughs. “I guess I do.” Her tone is still mischievous. “I’d ask you what to do about it, but… I’m pretty sure you have no experience giving lectures where your students can talk back.”

Will groans. “Give me a break. I’ve only been sociable for a year.”

Abigail smirks. “Approaching sociable,” she corrects.

“A snob and a smartass,” he complains, but he is smiling again and can’t seem to stop.

“Rude?” she offers.

“Getting there. Too smart for her own good, anyway, that’s for sure.”

“I’m learning from the best.” It is cheeky as anything, but a moment later she becomes solemn and says, softly, “I mean it, though. I like you. I like Hannibal. It’s not so lonely anymore.” She folds her arms over her knees and drops her head to them, cheekbone and kneecap articulating as she looks over at him.

Her bright blue eyes are a little less piercing, a little more uncertain –  _she looks a little more her age_ , Will thinks. He reaches over and tucks her hair behind her ear under the hood of her sweater.

Without any segue, she says, “You can tell people I’m your daughter if you want to.” Her face flushes deeply, the words having slipped past her strict screening procedures.

Will doesn’t know what he finds more touching, the words themselves, or the fact that she’d said something sweet that wasn’t premeditated.

He wants to. Of course he does. He doesn’t say that though, because she’s still blushing and he doesn’t know if she’s just embarrassed, or if she wants to take it back. So he simply smiles at her, brushing her cheek lightly with the thumb of the hand still resting on her hair, then leans back on his elbows and says, casually, “Okay, kid.”

As usual, Abigail mimics his posture, and they slip into their companionable silence until Will thinks it prudent to decide where they will be having dinner. He thinks it’s next to impossible to catch Hannibal unprepared, but it would be polite to give him some warning.

“Are you going back to Wolf Trap tonight?” Abigail asks.

Will narrows his eyes at her.

“What?” she asks innocently, though she’s unable to repress her grin for long. “Hannibal has guest rooms…”

Will is wearing a  _Lord, grant me patience_ expression. “Yes, Abigail, I am going back to Wolf Trap tonight.” When he looks over at her, she looks shy again, inexplicably. He raises his eyebrows. “You want to come?”

She nods, and then her shy little smile morphs into a shy little smirk. “But can we please have dinner at Hannibal’s first?”

“Snob,” is all Will says as they make their way to the car, lighthearted even as the dusk gathers around them.

 

_Not too far in the future, they will have a similarly structured conversation on a different set of steps._

_“Are you going to kill tonight?” Abigail will ask._

_He will nod. “Are you coming?”_

_He will not ask her if she wants to or not. She will have been acting on her own decisions for months. The choice will be entirely hers._

 

Instead of mollifying her, Abigail’s day as a member of the general population has made her restless, and snippy. She catches herself being almost rude at dinner, and tries being quiet instead. It just comes across as sulky. As they finish up their meal, Will decides it’s time to revisit the topic of what the hell the three of them are going to do.

“You said your plans haven’t changed.”

Hannibal replies, “They’ve been improved upon.”

“Can you explain them in layman’s terms?”

“The details are tedious but, essentially, we will procure new identities, travel for a while, or as long as we wish, really, and then perhaps find somewhere we all find beautiful to live.”

Will tries not to let the word  _perhaps_  twist him up. Everything in his own mind is a  _perhaps_  right now. He remembers Abigail saying that Hannibal no longer talks in absolutes about their plans, especially those concerning him. It shouldn’t scare him when Hannibal sounds anything less than 100% sure about something, not when he resents so much the level of control Hannibal has. However, much as Will hates it, the reality is that it’s a comfort to know  _one_  of them has shit figured out.

“Abigail mentioned Corleone and Puerto Madryn,” Will starts.

“Interesting. I was aware you were considering Italy, but not Argentina. Why those particular cities, Abigail?”

Again, she is ready with a set of disarmingly practical motives. “Corleone is in Palermo Province, and it’s just an hour away from the Cappella Palatina, but there will be fewer tourists than if we lived right in Palermo.”

“It’s also Cosa Nostra central,” Will adds, frowning.

“Yes,” is all Abigail says.

“And Puerto Madryn?” Hannibal asks.

Abigail shrugs. “I just like the look of it.” After a minute she asks, quietly. “When are we going?”

“As soon as possible,” Hannibal assures her. “However, that may be some months still. I must close my practice and… rearrange some assets. Will must extricate himself from the FBI. And we all have a date with Jack Crawford.”

“If we’re going to kill Jack, why does any of the other stuff have to happen? They’ll look straight to Will, and when they find out you’re gone too, they’ll be after us right away.”

“Not if we also kill Freddie Lounds,” Will contributes, almost inaudibly.

There is a moment of silence.

“Yes,” Hannibal agrees. “Ms. Lounds is the only real threat to a neat and tidy disappearance. By the time Alana hears about Jack, we will be gone and there will be no one to cry wolf to.” He sips his wine as calmly as ever before qualifying his statement. “No one who will listen.”

The air is heavy with everything that has just passed between them. Talking about their plans out loud makes them real – they are each other’s witnesses. The anxiety in Will’s stomach begins to uncoil, replaced by a dark, covetous feeling and a desire to set things in motion.

 

The impetus Will feels to put their plans into action doesn’t survive Tuesday morning with Jack. He’s gifted with two more illegitimate files and a rough, “Where are you right now, Will?”

Will sighs and takes the files, immediately too tired for an angry Jack. “You make it difficult to focus on any one thing, Jack.” He palms his forehead, already anticipating a headache. “Hannibal still hasn’t given me anything actionable. I’m trying to work out a way to speed things along. So, could you just…” Will waves the files slightly. “Maybe let up on this one, at least until we have some legal support?”

Jack looks ready to argue.

“ _Please_ , Jack.”

Jack stews for a few moments, then nods his chin towards the door with a grunt. It means,  _Fine. Now get out_.

 

“Don’t you ever want more from each other?” Abigail asks one afternoon, with her customary lack of preamble.

They are sitting together on the porch steps, as has become habit during stretches of free time. It is grey out, and slightly chilly, and Will is too tired for euphemisms. “If you’re talking about sex, I’m not sure I’m equipped to have this conversation with you.”

“I was trying to be subtle. You really don’t know how to ease into a topic, do you?” Abigail’s voice is teasing, but she looks almost severely pensive.

Not for the first time, Will wishes painfully that Bev were here. He thinks she would have given Abigail a beer, and the two of them would have played Scrabble on the porch. They would have talked about how frustratingly ignorant men could be, and Bev would have advised her never to date. Abigail would have laughed at the blatant hypocrisy and inspected the engagement ring. He can see it clearly.

_“Never date,” Bev says, but holds out her left hand, grinning. “And, uh… do as I say, not as I do.”_

_After examining the ring thoroughly, Abigail drops Bev’s hand with an exaggerated eye-roll and sighs out a succinct compliment. Bev cuffs her playfully upside the head, and Abigail shoves her in return._

_Finishing her own beer, Bev eyes Abigail’s nearly full bottle – she’d taken about half a sip before gagging at the taste. Bev scoops it up with a teasing, “You gonna finish this?” and downs a quarter of it while waiting patiently for Abigail to play a word. She already has her next one ready. When it’s her turn, she lazily places the tiles on the board, one by one, using the time to ask, “So what’s the first thing you’re gonna do when you come back from the dead?”_

Here, Will’s imagination fails. Or maybe just retreats. He doesn’t know what would have come up in the heart-to-heart that would probably have followed Bev’s casually encouraging question.

“Moody,” Abigail comments when Will doesn’t say anything for a while.

He looks over at her. Her eyebrows are only drawn together maybe a 16th of an inch, but Will sees it. “You seem pretty preoccupied yourself.” He lets fade the image of Bev and Abigail chatting animatedly. Bev is dead. Alana is gone. He is a poor substitute for either of them, but he’s all she has.  _Unless…_  “I don’t suppose you feel like being psycho-analyzed?” he suggests, and can’t help but laugh at her feigned hurt look.

“You’re so bad at conversation, you’d be willing to put me in  _therapy_  to avoid one?”

“ _Yes_.” He frowns at her, but his eyes are warm and he knows he isn’t fooling Abigail. “I  _should_  put you in therapy. You’re a brat.” His frown dissolves completely and he looks away, smiling in thought. He seems to decide something, and gets to his feet.

Abigail is disappointed. This ranks in her  _Top Five Least-Rewarding Interactions with Will Graham_  since before their reunion. He amends this with five words that promise he’s not ending their conversation.

“Do you want a beer?” He disappears into the house without waiting for her answer, and Abigail smiles to herself.

_Part of his charm, I guess._

 

Will doesn’t perform his subtle reassurances much anymore. Abigail doesn’t need him to sit on the step below to show her he’s harmless. She knows he is, and she knows that, sometimes, for her, he isn’t. Will rejoins her on the porch and they sit side-by-side, watching the dogs make good use of the flats in front of the little house, entertained by each other, their own tails, nothing at all.

“What’s on your mind, kid?” Will is both annoyed and amused at the words that come out of his mouth. Even calling her _kid_ in the same breath, his opener is only one rung below  _how does that make you feel?_  on the ladder of insipid therapist questions.

Surprisingly, she doesn’t laugh at him. “I guess I’m just wondering why you two aren’t together.”

“Do we need to be?”

“Do you  _want_  to be?” she throws back.

Will sighs. “Do you ever ask Hannibal the tough questions? I’m starting to feel like you save them all for me.”

Buster (somehow even more robust after being attacked by Randall Tier) has found something, nosing around in the grass, and trots up to them with a rubber ball that had been missed in the nightly sweep for toys. Abigail takes it and tosses it, high rather than far, and answers Will.

“I can ask Hannibal whatever I want to now, and he either tells me the truth, or doesn’t say anything. I don’t have to worry about being lied to. But…” She throws the ball again while choosing her next words. “Even though it’s like pulling teeth to get any information out of you…” She rolls her eyes to make sure he gets the hint. “It still feels more like we’re talking.”

Will smiles to himself, feeling tender and happy, and a lick of something like pride at having done  _anything_  better than Hannibal.

As though she’d heard his thoughts, Abigail tacks on a cheeky addendum. “Don’t let that go to your head. You’re still terrible at it.” He pushes her away with a hand on the side of her head. She giggles.

“I don’t think you understand how few hours are left in the day after work. Not to mention the  _kind_ of work doesn’t really put you in the mood to pursue intimacy. It’s kind of what you sign up for with the FBI.”

“Bev was going to get married,” Abigail points out.

Will almost chokes as his earlier vision is wrenched back into being. He looks down at the peeling paint between his feet and says, “Well… Bev was amazing.”

Abigail loops her arm through his and huddles up against him. She does this as though she’s just cold, not trying to comfort him. “What about something casual?”

Will shrugs. “Hardly seems worth it.”

“Okay, well what about a proper relationship?”

“You know those are even more time-consuming right?”

Abigail rolls her eyes again. “So is having an adopted daughter and keeping seven dogs.”

Will concedes the point with a grudging nod.

“I’ve been reading some of Hannibal’s more user-friendly psychology textbooks,” Abigail announces out of the blue, since segues are apparently not a strong point for either of them. “I’m going to practice my new skills on you.”

Will raises his eyebrows. “Doesn’t really work if you tell me what you’re doing.”

“Unless you knowing what I’m doing is a condition in my study.”

“Hm,” is all Will says.

Abigail picks up her drink and takes a few consecutive sips. She does make a face, but it might just be that she knows the difference between cheap beer, and beer with flavours other than bitter to pick apart.

“Is this part of it?” Will asks after a minute or two has passed.

“Actually, no.” She looks embarrassed. “I lost my train of thought. Is Hannibal coming for dinner tonight?”

“As far as I know.”

“Do you love him?”

“I don’t know. Probably. I try not to think about it.” He sighs rather heavily. “Nice ambush.”

She smiles with a hint of cheek, but is still studying him intently.

Feeling very much done with this conversation, Will grumbles, “Go call Hannibal and psychoanalyze  _him_  for a while. And tell him if he wants wine with dinner, he’d better bring it himself.”

 

The  _Auntie Bev_  fantasy haunts him that evening and makes him prickly towards Hannibal. Abigail thinks Will is being short with Hannibal because she’d put him on the spot earlier. After dinner, Hannibal tells them he will clean up, so she trails after Will to the living room.

“Don’t be mad at him,” she says, sounding much younger than usual. “I’m sorry I pushed so much earlier.”

Will rubs his forehead as he sits down on the couch. Softly, he says, “It’s  _really_  not that, Abigail.”

“What is it then?” she blurts out and, if anything, feels worse, because Will is thinking how to answer her despite obviously having a migraine. He’s pinching the bridge of his nose so hard the tips of his fingers turn white. She’s about to say,  _Never mind_ , and leave him in peace, when Hannibal enters the room.

She thinks maybe Hannibal  _can_  actually hear people’s thoughts. He’s carrying a glass of water and a bubble-pack of aspirin. Will takes them and looks up at Hannibal gratefully. “Thanks.”

Hannibal nods, then looks to Abigail. “Are you alright, Abigail?” he asks gently.

She shrugs. “Better than Will.”

“Hm. We’d best leave him alone, then.” Hannibal puts an arm around her shoulders to lead her from the room.

Abigail has noted that he does this from time to time – more often, nowadays. It’s a completely unnecessary gesture, and not the same as when Will does it. Maybe Hannibal just doesn’t know how to be affectionate without purpose. That would explain the methodical application of goodnight kisses and pats on the head. She almost giggles, but it’s not quite enough to dispel her worry.

“Abigail has a question I think you can answer.” Will’s voice is rough and quiet.

Hannibal turns back a fraction of an inch to nod in acknowledgement, but Will doesn’t see it. He’s already finished his glass of water and fallen back against the couch cushions with an arm thrown over his eyes to block out the light.

 

They go to Will’s room and Abigail chews her lip, thinking. She doesn’t know why it’s so hard to phrase the question. She’s already asked it once, but she’s afraid that, to Hannibal, it will come out sounding like  _what did you do?_

Hannibal spares her. “You want to know why Will is angry with me.”

She nods and sits on the edge of the bed, looking up at him apprehensively and following him with her eyes as he joins her.

He leaves more space between them than usual, but looks her dead in the eye when he tells her, “I killed Beverly Katz.”

 

Abigail cries for a while, but says she thinks she knew that, deep down. She asks if that means he’s the Chesapeake Ripper, though she knows the answer is _yes_. She asks the questions she’s had since Minnesota. The ones she'd never allowed herself to formulate fully in her mind, let alone out loud. _Are you a serial killer?_ she’d asked as they stood in the kitchen of her old house, ghosts of blood spatter all around them. She hadn’t asked  _which_  serial killer.

Hannibal answers all of her questions, filling in the gaps of their story calmly, gently.

He waits until long after her tears have stopped. He waits until her nose stops running and her sniffles only punctuate the silence every twenty seconds or so. Then, he asks what they had talked about, to make her worry that Will’s mood was a latent reaction to something she’d said.

“I asked why you two aren’t together. Guess I didn’t realize how complicated your history is.”

“It was a fair question.” Hannibal’s voice is completely neutral.

Abigail thinks that if she did a bit of prying, she could get more answers out of him, but she doesn’t feel like it right now. She curls up on the bed and purposely places her head near Hannibal’s hand, giving him permission to stroke her hair. The sheets still smell like fabric softener. She picks at the lint on the blankets until her eyes close.

Hannibal does stroke her hair, but he can’t look at her anymore. When he hears her breaths deepen, he pulls a blanket up over her where she lies. He swallows once, and leaves the room.

 

Abigail wakes up around 2am. Hannibal is gone, and all the lights except the ones on the porch have been switched off. She passes the kitchen and doubles back to pour a glass of water for Will, in case he wakes up. When she makes it to the living room and approaches the couch, she sees that his empty glass had already been replaced with a full one. She puts her glass down next to it. It’s perfectly placed in the center of a coaster ( _what?_ ), and the coaster is lined up perfectly with the edge of the coffee table. She has to cover her mouth so her laugh isn’t audible. _Purposeful affection_ , she thinks, and leaves it just so.

 

Will wakes up a little after dawn, turning his head to find the early morning sunlight glancing off two full glasses on the coffee table. One had been placed near the corner, in geometric perfection on a coaster ( _what?_ ); the other had spilled while being put down, and sits in a little puddle of water. He smiles and lies staring at them for a while, throat aching.

He rolls onto his back and closes his eyes again, and a couple of errant tears squeeze loose. A flood of them follow. He keeps his eyes shut firmly and grits his teeth, chest and shoulders convulsing with each silent, painful sob. Eventually he falls back asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

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	5. Arrogant Serenity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sexy stuff with Margot.  
> (Margot is in this story A BUNCH)  
> I've attempted a mashup of book Margot and show Margot, and am hoping it results in Super-Margot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta'd by my beautiful murderwife, Kate ([asprigofzest](http://archiveofourown.org/users/asprigofzest) on A03 & [aweesprigofzest](http://weesprigofzest.tumblr.com) on tumblr).

Whiskey and exhaustion-induced sleep have given Will reprieve from dreams of the dying ravenstag for almost a month. Tonight, it makes an abrupt and unwelcome reappearance.

_The wendigo reaches down an inky hand, like every time before, to help the newborn to its feet. As he stretches his arm up to grasp at it, he sees another figure approach over the wendigo’s bony shoulder. It comes to stand at the monster’s side, revealing itself to be Abigail, dark as obsidian with eyes like black glass. Her hair is a thousand tiny feathers that rustle and flutter even though there is no wind. She holds out her hand to him, mirroring the wendigo. He reaches back, and is horrified to see that his arms in the moonlight look grey in comparison. He withdraws, feeling weak and sickly kneeling before the two. Looking back over his shoulder at the eviscerated stag huffing its last breaths, he can see neither betrayal nor forgiveness in its eyes. He returns his gaze to the two deadly beings offering their hands. They could be night incarnate, or oblivion itself._

When Will wakes up, it is midday on Wednesday, and it is to loud thumping and sounds of heavy furniture being dragged around in the room above him.

“You shouldn’t have to sleep on the couch all the time just because I tricked you into letting me stay here.” Abigail is tightening one of the screws on the slightly rusted old bedframe she’s repositioned.

Will leans against the doorway, rubbing his eyes. “I don’t mind,” he says, aware that the quality of his sleep is less dependent on where he sleeps than it is on what he’s allowed into his head that day. He looks around the well-lit, but dusty and mostly empty space. The air is stale. Abigail has the window propped open, though, and even a light breeze will circulate the room and freshen it.

“You want this room?”

“Hannibal said he’d get a mattress delivered if you allowed it,” Abigail says in response.

He smiles around a yawn. “Kind of looks like  _you’ve_  allowed it,” he says mildly.

She stands and wipes dust and dirt off herself with a cloth, then folds it and sets it on the windowsill. “Sorry I woke you up.”

They make their way back downstairs for an overdue dose of coffee, and sit in their usual place on the porch steps.

Abigail leans forward to look around the awning at her new bedroom window. “I like that you can climb onto the roof from it.”

“I may have done that already, in my sleep.”

“Actually?”

Will smiles a little. “Yeah. It’s pretty nice, but I wouldn’t recommend waking up out there.”

“I’ll try and remember that.”

“Do you want to come to Baltimore tonight?”

Abigail hesitates. “No.”

“Are you avoiding Hannibal?”

“ _No._ ”

“If you say so.”

Abigail gives him a dirty look, but takes his empty cup, too, before stomping inside. She spends most of the afternoon clearing away dust and cobwebs, and relocating the spare motor parts that have been living in her room for no obvious reason. She hauls them out to the shed.

Will looks up from his work when she traipses past him, but doesn’t say anything about her turning his house upside down.

He shuts off his laptop when it’s time to leave for his appointment, and for a moment his vision is narrow; white and blurry around the edges from staring at the screen and not noticing it get darker out.

Abigail is half-asleep, curled around the encyclopedia in an armchair. She blinks up at him when he reaches down and tucks her hair behind her ear.

“Bye kid,” he says softly, and then teasingly, “Be good.”

She looks so harmless, but when she punches him in the arm, it’s really quite painful.

“Bye!” he hears her call as he shuts the front door.

 

Hannibal is penning Jack’s name on an envelope in irritatingly beautiful script. The invitation sits next to it, complete except for a blank space where the as yet undecided date will go. Will pulls a chair over to the desk to sit across the corner from him. When he’s finished, Hannibal slides the papers to the side to dry, and leans back in his chair to mirror Will’s posture.

Will’s eyes linger on the invitation for a moment but there isn’t any reason to discuss it. Jack continues to pursue his apparent goal of burying Will in extracurriculars, and no trial date has been set for Miriam Lass, who faces complicated manslaughter charges. It’s understood that they will wait until after the trial to _give Jack the Chesapeake Ripper_.

“What’s on your mind this evening, Will?”

Will refocuses on Hannibal’s face and flashes a brief smile. “Well,  _that_ , now,” he says, inclining his head towards the calligraphed note paper and envelope.

Hannibal smiles. “And earlier?”

“I had an interesting day with Abigail,” Will muses.

Hannibal cocks his head to the side and waits.

“Did you tell her you’re the Chesapeake Ripper?”

“Yes.”

“Why? If you’ve managed to keep if from her for so long?”

“She asked.”

Hannibal’s responses are becoming predictably simple in their delivery, and this one certainly doesn’t suggest there is more to the matter, so Will simply nods and changes the subject. “What’s she doing, thinking about living in the mob boss capital? Does she want to clean up the streets, or get into drugs?”

“Probably the former.”

Will turns the question around in his mind several times before asking it aloud. “Was Jack right, Hannibal? Does she have a  _taste for it_  now?”

“I wouldn’t say that. I imagine she’s coming to terms with her own lack of remorse over killing. Perhaps she is trying to decide whether it is the result of being a killer at heart, or because her killing up until now has been necessary.”

Will ponders this quietly.

Hannibal continues. “Or, she may already know, and has chosen her target and the skill set she intends to acquire.”

“Abigail is going to try and take down the Mafia because she’s having an identity crisis?”

Hannibal chuckles at Will’s summation. “I don’t believe there is cause for concern,” he opines, reasoning, “At this point, she is simply theorizing on the subject. It’s difficult to see the relative grandiosity of a plan when it’s just in one’s head. Things are rarely to scale in our minds.”

“ _You_  seem to translate your grand plans into reality pretty well.”

“I will take that as a compliment.”

“Yes. You probably should.”

“I doubt Abigail will pursue anything unreasonable. She is inherently pragmatic, and impressively self-aware for her age.”

“Oh, you noticed that, did you?”

“Difficult to avoid.” Hannibal smiles. “What with all her candid observations.”

“She’s pretty relentless,” Will agrees.

A beat or two passes before Hannibal concludes, “I think we should allow Abigail her crime-fighting fantasy, especially if it’s a comfort to her in this interim.”

“You don’t think that, as her  _fathers_ , we should be encouraging something less… extreme?”

“I’ve seen your mind go to even greater extremes.”

“You mean when I was drugged and experiencing induced seizures?” Will can’t help the bitter chuckle that escapes his throat. “Have you been whispering through the chrysalis with Abigail, too?”

“Have  _you_ , Will?”

“What?”

“Targeting the unlawful smacks more of your influence than mine.”

Hannibal is right. Will drums his fingers against the armrests thoughtfully. After a while he leans forward on his elbows and says, “We have to reconcile our different philosophies, for Abigail’s sake, if we’re going to come out of this alive.”

“At the risk of sounding overly analytical, might I ask what differences you mean?”

“Our different perspectives on the value of human life.”

“But you are not opposed to killing,” Hannibal points out.

“I’m opposed to killing indiscriminately.”

“I don’t kill indiscriminately. Neither does Abigail.”

“But your justification for killing the people you do…”

“I would argue, then, that we don’t have a difference in philosophy so much as a difference in standards.”

Will rubs his hands over his face and lets out a long, deep sigh. He looks up at Hannibal and gives him an unexpected smile. “I find that idea a bit overwhelming.”

Hannibal studies him. “You learned your limitations too early. The world does not deserve your protection, or your mercy.”

Will is struck by these words, and the tone in which they are delivered. Calm and sure, but carrying a touch of resentment. Whether the resentment is for Will or the world, he can’t tell. It’s not until the clock chimes that Will realizes they must have sat there in silence for a good twenty minutes.

He is in too much of a philosophical stupor to respond to Hannibal’s hand on his shoulder in his usual way. Usually, he remains motionless, not tensing up – that would be rude, probably – but not moving a muscle, either, until Hannibal takes his hand away. Tonight, maybe just slightly, he relaxes against the touch instead.

His bewildered state of mind is not improved by his arriving in Wolf Trap to find another car already in his drive. Margot Verger chooses this night to show up on his doorstep to solicit whiskey and a character reference.

 

The next week, Abigail does go with Will to Baltimore, and brings her little duffel bag. She waits in the waiting room and leaves with Hannibal. Will tentatively accepts Hannibal’s invitation to come for dinner the next evening, explaining that Miriam Lass is being transferred to the BSHCI tomorrow afternoon, and since there’s absolutely no reason why Will should be there, Jack has requested his presence.

Will arrives at Hannibal’s the next evening around 8pm, tired and frustrated, and feeling guilty about the fact that they’ve waited for him. “Jack is trying to kill me,” he mumbles over his plate.

“Perhaps Jack needs something to distract him.”

 

That Saturday, Margot Verger knocks on his door just after 1am, brandishing a bottle of scotch. “I’ve come to replenish your stores. Can I come in?”

He stands aside. “What are you doing out here so late?”

She shrugs off her coat and deposits the scotch on his desk. “Feeling lonely. Thought I could help deplete some of your stores after replenishing them.” She taps the side of the bottle with her fingernail.

They sit on the couch in the living room with a whiskey tumbler each.

“What happened to your hand?” Margot asks.

“Stag got lost and came through the window.”

Her mouth twitches up.  _Not a stag._

He’s aware she knows he’s lying, and for a minute, thinks about telling her what had really happened. She’d come to him in the first place for a character reference, after all, and Randall Tier was a fine alumnus of Dr. Lecter’s tutelage. But then he’d have to tell her what he did with the body, and then about his plans with Jack, and why they’d failed. Instead, he shrugs as though he doesn’t know why she’s smiling skeptically and simply says, “I may have gotten a few scratches.”

“Are you scarred?”

“Probably more than I know.”

“Hm.” Margot stands and considers her glass. She paces around the room, slowly and apparently aimlessly, and then she’s standing in front of Will, unbuttoning her blouse with one hand. “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”

Will thinks Margot has a strange and dark sense of humor, and he’s not likely to understand it.

She keeps unbuttoning and lets the blouse drop to the floor. When she sets down her glass and goes to unbutton her pants, Will stops her, feeling very much at sea.

“I don’t have the right parts for your proclivities, Margot.”

“I think I have the right parts for yours.”

“And why are you donating your parts?”

“Oh, this isn’t charity. I plan to use your parts too. In a selective fashion, of course.”

“You didn’t answer my question. Why are you doing this?”

“I told you, I’m lonely. I thought you could relate.”

He sighs. “Didn’t used to be a problem.”

She rests a knee on the couch and leans forward. “Because you had someone? Or because you never felt lonely?”

“The latter.”

“And now?”

“It’s harder to stay detached.”

“I can relate. People have a terrible habit of imposing themselves on your life, and then hanging around ’til you miss them when they’re gone.” As usual, her voice sounds both airy and disdainful. She slips off her pants.

“Not everyone. My daughter is asleep upstairs.”

Margot’s eyes widen slightly and she raises her eyebrows, but doesn’t ask. Instead she pulls her other knee up onto the couch and straddles him. She looks slightly subdued, but the firm kiss she plants on his lips is anything but.

He wraps his arms around her waist and she crawls properly onto his lap.

“What do you want, Margot?”

“I want…” She starts to unbutton his shirt. “You to let me use this body of yours…” She discards the shirt on the floor. “To make myself feel good.”

“Thank you for being honest,” he says, amused by how unapologetic she’s being about turning him into her plaything, though he’s still bewildered as hell by the whole situation.

“I think it’ll be fun for you too.”

“Is that what you think.”

“If  _you_  don’t overthink it.”

“I’ll do my best.” He initiates the kiss this time. It’s hot and heavy and Margot seems to be enjoying it as much as he is. He groans with a sudden unfortunate realization. “You won’t get to use all my parts. I’m fairly certain there are no condoms in this house.”

He slips a hand between them and under the fabric of her panties to explore her slit. She’s not wet, but he’s not surprised.

“Are you clean?” she asks.

He almost laughs, but manages to just nod. “Aside from being sexually  _inactive_  in general, all field agents have mandatory bloodwork done every year. Even crappy ones with temp badges.”

She straightens and looks at him slyly. “Excellent,” she says. “I’m clean too. You can use all your parts.”

“Birth control…”

“IUD.”

It’s Will’s turn to raise his eyebrows.

“No point having a monthly reminder that I’m not  _breeding_.” The word clearly leaves a bad taste in her mouth.

“Well, since we’re discussing logistics...”

“…like the carefree, sensuous people we are…” she chimes in, with a self-deprecating half-smile.

“...we probably shouldn’t do this out here.”

“Okay.” She loops her arms around his neck and looks at him expectantly.

He goes to stand up and she tightens her arms and winds her legs around his waist. “You can let go, you know,” he says as he struggles to his feet.

She adjusts herself in his grip so she’s not just dangling off him. “If I look away, I might turn back and find you’re not that attractive after all.”

“That’s fair.” He starts walking awkwardly towards the bedroom.

“Bring the scotch,” she orders.

 

Will spends a good half-hour kissing and tonguing between Margot’s legs while she lies back on his bed, comfortable as royalty. After a few minutes, she runs her fingers through his hair and says, “I’m not going to suck your dick. Even if you prove amazing at this.”

Will doesn’t say anything, but does roll his eyes a little as he explores the soft skin of her inner thighs with his lips. She knows she’s gorgeous. She knows he’s loving it. He brings her right to the edge with his tongue and fingers, just to spite her. She pulls him up for a kiss and reaches down to guide him in.

“I still feel weird about this,” Will says.

Margot is unsympathetic. Aggressively so. “Lighten up,” she says, then adds, “And get it up.”

“You’re a terrible person.” But he strokes himself and mouths hungrily over her skin.

“I’m not the worst person I know.”

“Been told I don’t have much tact myself.”

“Not interested in tact.” She’s breathing as heavily as he is. “Tact isn’t interesting.”

He runs a hand up the inside of her thigh and presses two fingers in to rub her inside walls. “You’ll tell me to stop if you don’t want to anymore?”

“Oh, you’ll know. Better fucking believe it.”

“Jesus.”

He’s barely all the way in when she flips them over and takes the top. She wastes no time bringing their pace up, and for a while he just holds her ass and meets her hips with his as she rides him. At some point, they each start emitting audible moans, increasing steadily in volume. They don’t realize this until Will lets go of one of her hips to press his thumb over her clit just where their bodies are joined. Margot cries out before she can stop herself, and Will hisses at her to be quiet, but immediately lets out a moan of equal volume when she savagely thrusts her hips back down and rocks forward.

He pulls her down onto his chest. They pant for a minute, Margot smirking against his skin, listening for sounds of movement elsewhere in the house. They hear nothing. Will rolls on top of her and spreads her legs. “Alright?” he whispers.

She drags his hips down in response. “You don’t have to be so  _fucking delicate_ ,” she practically snarls at him, and he has to cover her mouth as her voice fills the room.

He drops his head and laughs softly into her neck. “What if I want to fuck you delicately?” he asks, pulling out of her and then pushing back in, so, so slowly.

She makes a frustrated noise. “I’m gay. That doesn’t mean my cunt isn’t programmed to feel good when you fuck me.”

He shrugs and does it again, and she looks up at him murderously. He adjusts his hips and quickens and deepens his movements. She moans her approval after two full length thrusts. She grabs his shoulders and they both grind against each other. He leans back, taking her with him until she’s sitting in his lap, long hair falling in his face and hands migrating from his shoulders to his neck, to his hair, down his back.

He pumps into her a few times and feels her shift slightly, trying to find an angle that lets her press her clit against his pubic bone at every movement. She works herself on him for a while and he moves beneath her, hard enough that it still feels good, but slow enough that she can do whatever she needs to get off. When her breaths become short and shallow again, and little noises escape her throat with every push in, he holds her in place by her shoulders and thrusts up in earnest.

“That feels good,” she whispers.

He mouths up her neck and with a groan, says, “I don’t know how much longer I’m gonna last.”

She pants as he keeps up the steady pace. “Me neither,” she says when she finds her breath. “I guess it’s been a while for both of us.” She smiles against his mouth and it opens against hers. They kiss fiercely for a moment, two lonely hearts, and then Margot slides up off him, saying, “Take me then.” She positions herself on her hands and knees and looks over her shoulder at him. “Fuck me  _delicately_  if you want, but take me.”

He is breathing heavily, every muscle taut, when he lines himself back up and reenters her. This close to the edge, she feels even hotter and slicker. He plants his knees on each side of her and nudges her legs closed, and she feels even tighter. He’s not so much kissing her as letting his lips drag up her spine. He traces his nose up her neck and along her hairline, and mumbles, “This is how you want it?”

She nods and reaches back to find one of his hands and place it between her legs. He curves around her. “I lied,” she moans, “I want it harder.” He works his hips and hand with abandon, and she gasps out that she wants to feel it. “Come inside me.”

He shudders, feeling her clench involuntarily around him, muscles pulsating as she finishes. “Ah– fuck,” he groans, and does exactly that.

 

Margot isn’t in bed when he returns from the kitchen with a glass of water and a washcloth, but he sees the front door is slightly ajar, and faintly hears her voice out on the porch. He digs out a t-shirt and boxer shorts for her while waiting. She reappears a few minutes later, fully naked.

“I had to make a phone call,” she says, voice rough.

“Are you okay?”

She nods her head and takes the washcloth. He rolls onto his back and stares at the ceiling while she cleans off the fluid that has slid down her thighs. She pulls on the boxers and tee, and when she climbs into bed next to him, he is already asleep. She turns on her side. After a minute, she feels him roll over and drape an arm over her waist. She looks down at the hand lying softly against her stomach. His breaths are deep and regular, and she can just feel each puff against her neck – he hasn’t woken up.

She wants to pretend that it’s Judy’s hand, but her mind doesn’t cooperate. She feels guilty. It doesn’t matter that Judy knows exactly where she is, exactly what she’s  _done_. It doesn’t matter that Will knows she’s a lesbian and that this wouldn’t have happened if she weren’t desperate and lonely. It doesn’t matter. She feels like she’s betrayed them both.

She strokes his fingers remorsefully, then rests her hand on his and closes her eyes. She feels his arm tighten slightly around her, and she wriggles backward until she is snug against his chest.

The two of them – forever pieces in one exhausting game or another – sleep through the night, wrapped around each other.

 

In the morning they find Abigail on the porch, sipping coffee with a book in hand. She almost never sleeps in, and sits outside rather than inside unless a very good, very specific reason is given her why she can’t. They emerge from the house: Margot, fully clothed, with her shoes and coat on, and Will, sort of clothed, barefoot.

“Hi,” Abigail says brightly.

“You must be the daughter.” Margot holds out her hand.

She looks less severe in the daylight, with her hair slightly mussed and eyeliner faded. Abigail has seen pictures of her and her brother in the papers. She looks like a young evil queen in all of them.

“I’m Sarah,” Abigail says, and shakes Margot’s hand. She sees Will smile and, for whatever reason, shake his head, looking away.

“I’m Margot.”

Abigail stares at her placidly, wanting more information.

Margot adds, “I’m a patient of Dr. Lecter.”

Abigail smiles and tilts her head to one side, but doesn’t say anything.

Margot sighs. “I’m also rather unethically sleeping with your father.”

“Oh. Cool. Do you want breakfast?”

Margot’s mouth quirks up on one side, the closest thing to a smile she allows in public. It’s difficult not to. Sarah talks the same way that Will does: succinct and to the point, and unapologetic about it. Margot declines but looks back and forth between the two of them. ”You kind of look alike,” she decides.

“Will adopted me.”

“Oh.” There is a pause. “Lucky you.”

Will chuckles and rubs his jaw. “Well, now I know what it sounds like to have a conversation with me.”

Abruptly, Margot says, “Bye, Will. Bye, Sarah,” then turns and walks down the steps to her car.

Will doesn’t stand there and see her off. “Didn’t miss a beat,” he says to Abigail, still grinning as he steps back inside. Two seconds later he pokes his head out again and asks, “Were you actually going to make breakfast if she’d said yes?”

She smiles innocently at him, and primly says, “No.”

 

A little while later she does make breakfast. Sort of. She puts a couple slices of bread in the toaster and starts a fresh pot of coffee that’s ready by the time Will gets out of the shower. He joins her back on the porch with a mug of coffee for himself, a refill for Abigail, and the two slices of toast between his teeth.

“If these weren’t for me, I’m eating them anyway.”

“Mhm. Thanks.” She takes her mug from him and goes back to reading for a bit.

Will finishes his toast and opens the front door again to let the dogs out, and Abigail jumps right into the conversation she wants to have.

“So, Margot’s abrupt. You two make a good pair.”

“No. We don’t.”

“Case in point.”

He smiles. “She’s not interested in men. Usually, I guess.” He shrugs. “Not gonna look a gift horse in the mouth.”

“Did you look  _her_  in the mouth? With your mouth?”

“Oh my god, Abigail. Promise me you don’t say things like that around Hannibal.”

“Actually, I was going to ask Hannibal when he’s going to look _you_ in the mouth with _his_ mouth.”

“Okay, and don’t say things like _that_ around _me_.”

Abigail just cackles.

“You’re killing me.” A few minutes later, he whistles for the dogs. “I’m gonna go for a walk. Coming?”

She shakes her head and holds up her book. He disappears back into the house.

Abigail calls after him. “You’re very pretty, Will. I can see why she likes you.”

Will wonders how it can be possible to love someone so much and still want to drown them.

 

It’s when Will turns to Dr. Lecter and asks, “Did you know?” that he truly sounds betrayed.

Margot’s face has been a mask of arrogant serenity throughout the session. She drawls each statement and turns away whenever Will looks over at her, determined to seem remorseless.

“I was aware of Margot’s goal of having a child. I wasn’t aware that you were the means of achieving it,” Hannibal answers. He sounds distinctly amused.

Will frowns at him and Margot can tell he heard it too.

“What do you want from me?” Will asks her.

“Nothing. Or as much as you’d like to give.”

“As much as I would like to give?” His face is expressionless, as though he senses a trap, and it remains closed for the rest of the discussion.

The hour is almost up when Hannibal stands and moves to the door. “Margot, would you mind waiting here for a moment?” He ushers her into the waiting room. “I would like to speak with Will privately. If I may...?” He turns and looks back at Will like it’s a question. Will looks away. Hannibal smiles at Margot before shutting the door.

She looks out the strip of window next to the entrance, not sure why she’s meant to be waiting, but not particularly keen to leave, either.

 

Inside, Will asks Hannibal, “Have you ever been a father?”

“I was a father to my sister. She was not my child, but she was my charge. Her name was Mischa.”

“Was?”

“She died.”

 

When Will emerges, Margot studies his face to gauge where they stand. It gives nothing away, and he doesn’t look at her. Pausing at her side, he sighs and wraps her in a brief, one-armed hug. “I’m sorry,” he says and kisses the top of her head. Into her hair, he says, “I’m angry. We’ll talk later, okay?” And then he’s gone.

 

They don’t talk. Not until Will receives a call from a private hospital three weeks later.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

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	6. A Halfway Functional Conscience

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will and Hannibal stop pretending they don't want to kill and/or fuck each other basically all the time. Shit gets real ugly for a while.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta'd by [Kate](http://archiveofourown.org/users/asprigofzest/pseuds/asprigofzest), my lovely murderwife. Check out her [tumblr page](http://weesprigofzest.tumblr.com). She is [asprigofzest](http://archiveofourown.org/users/asprigofzest). Literally and internetally.

Margot lies in her room and looks out the window without seeing anything. She’s not sure what she’s sad about, or even if she  _is_  sad. Maybe she feels violated for the thousandth time in her life, and it’s just worse this time. They could have done what they did laparoscopically, but Mason had instructed them to leave scars. Overkill, considering Margot isn’t likely to forget that Mason had won in the end.

_He’s a sick fucking sack of shit, Em. And you saved me from him._

She still has Judy. That’s all that matters. They’ll change their names and move away and take care of each other. Maybe adopt. It seems like such a straightforward future now. Why had she ever believed Mason could be stopped?

_I don’t get a legacy._

_Unless you make one._

She should have just killed Mason and let everything go to the Southern Baptist Convention. Now she has no choice but to leave, with less than she had before. She’ll never be able to get near Mason again.

_And this is going to save all of us from him._

But she still has Judy. She tries to conjure her partner’s voice in her mind. Their last long conversation had been the day of the positive pregnancy test. Margot swallows. It had been such a happy conversation; each of their voices sounding like they’d been untied from some restraint, working not to rush into each other’s sentences excitedly. She can’t think of that right now. That day was the antithesis of this day.

The time before that had been the night she’d paced naked back and forth across Will’s porch in the middle of the night. She’d run her free hand along the railing, expecting splinters but getting none.

_Ingram._

_Jude?_

_Hi, baby!_

_You’re driving. I’ll call back._

_Hands free, I promise. What time is it there?_

_Oh, pretty late. Or pretty early._

_Just let me pull over._

Margot had waited, some of the loose white paint chips flaking off under her nails. Hearing Judy’s voice, hearing her put everything aside for few minutes just for her –  she’d felt better and worse all at once.

_Okay. Em? What’s the matter?_

_Well, tonight was the night._

_Oh. You okay?_

_It went as well as it could have._

_That’s not an answer, Em. Tell me._

Judy’s voice was so soft and loving on the other end of the line, Margot had teared up almost right away.

_I feel bad. I know we talked about it…_

_Do you feel bad for lying to him?_

_I don’t know. I think so._

_Well, we’re going to tell him the truth if this works. There’s no point feeling bad right now, okay Em?_

Margot had taken a moment too long to answer, and it hadn’t gotten past Judy. She’d continued as though she could see Margot brushing tears off her cheek with her palm.

Margot _. If you’re feeling bad about you and me..._

_I know. I feel bad anyway, though._

_Thank you for calling me._

_Instead of going into a tailspin?_

_Yes, my darling crazy girl._

Margot’s tears had stopped, though she’d continued sniffling for a little bit.

_I love you, Jude._

_I know. Know how I know? Because you did this so I wouldn’t have to go anywhere near Mason. Or his_ viable sperm _. Ugh, just almost puked even saying that._

_I should have waited ’til you got home._

_I wish you had. He got to you didn’t he?_

_He has a new… project. He demonstrated, using my clothes and my perfume._

_He’s a sick fucking sack of shit, Em. And you saved me from him. And this is going to save all of us from him. Do you want me to come home?_

_No._

_No?_

_Okay, I want you here all the time._

_Just wanted to hear you say it._

_Jude._

_What?_

_Don’t come back here for a while._

_I miss you. Wish I had a dick. Problem solved. Did you pick someone cute? Please say yes._

_He’s pretty tasty if you like whole wheat._

_Are you okay now?_

_Yeah. I just wanted to hear your voice._

_Call me tomorrow? Or today, whatever. Some reasonable time over there._

_Okay._

_Love you, Em._

Margot is always the one to hang up first. She knows Judy waits for her to so she’ll still be there if Margot changes her mind and wants to keep talking. It’s the smallest thing, but so comforting.

She’d gone back inside, locked the door, and poked around in the dark for a box of tissues. She’d wiped roughly under her eyes to remove any incriminating makeup smudges, and blown her nose as quietly as humanly possible, then felt her way down Will’s hallway to his bedroom, trying not to think about how long it would be before she’d be going to bed with Judy again.

They’ve been together five years now. Margot can’t help but call Judy before an imminent meltdown. Except this time.

 

“Hi Margot.”

“Hi Will.”

He takes a seat in the chair already pulled up to the bedside, then realizes that to look at him, she has to squint into the glare of the window behind him. Mason has visited her. He picks the chair up and moves it around to the other side of the bed.

She smiles briefly in appreciation. Then, “You didn’t call,” she says.

“Sorry,” Will says, and means it.

“It’s alright.” She turns her head to look up at the ceiling. “I didn’t expect you to.”

Her voice is airy and detached but it sounds like her throat is raw, and her eyes are red around the rims. Her cheeks are bruised and there are tiny cuts all over her face and hands, but Will knows they are insignificant next to the real damage that has been done.

“I shouldn’t have been angry with you.”

“ _I_  was angry with me.”

“I… can’t tell if you want an explanation or not.”

She doesn’t answer, but turns her face back to him expectantly.

“Every decision concerning fatherhood has been made  _for_  me. Without my permission. Usually without my knowledge.”

She looks confused, but leaves it and says, “I’m sorry I lied to you.”

“Your situation was pretty dire.”

“Still is.”

Will can hear the fear through her even tone. “Margot, I’m going to help you get rid of Mason.”

“You can’t,” she says flatly. “You’ll die.”

There is a long pause in which Will considers this. Then he shakes his head. “I don’t think so. Not if Mason’s interest is elsewhere.”

This time she isn’t confused. “You said you shouldn’t have been angry with  _me_ …”

“I should have been angry with Dr. Lecter instead, yes.”

“Were you?”

“I  _am_. I’ll take care of it. And when you’re better, we’ll talk about a plan.”

Margot smiles at the implication that he won’t do anything stupid in the meantime. She smiles even though she’s pretty sure it isn’t true.

“Margot,” he begins, after a couple minutes of quiet. “Look… I’m glad the hospital called me, but… is there someone  _I_  should call?”

Margot breathes out a laugh and looks back up at the ceiling. “Observant little fucker.”

“So,  _yes_.”

Margot shakes her head. “You shouldn’t call her. She’ll come running.”

“Why shouldn’t she?”

“If Mason isn’t done sulking, he’ll take it out on her.”

“I’ll look out for her.” He bites back what he’s really thinking –  _they’ll find her anywhere if they really want to_  – when Margot tears up. “She’d want to know.”

Somewhere in her mind, Margot knows she’s being irrational, but she says, firmly, “Judy can’t come home until Mason is dead.”

Will sighs. “Okay. Won’t she worry though, when she doesn’t hear from you?”

“I’ll email her.”

He doesn’t say anything. She looks like she knows it’s a flimsy idea. He’ll try again tomorrow. Tears have pooled in her eyes, which she widens, as though they will reabsorb them if she just doesn’t blink. When she does blink, she haughtily pretends the tears that roll down her cheeks aren’t there. He looks away for a moment so she can brush them away.

“How’s Sarah?” she asks quietly.

Will thinks for a moment, considering Margot, her position, and what the truth might mean to her. “Sarah…” He pauses on the knife’s edge. “Sarah isn’t actually a Sarah. She’s more of an Abigail. Specifically, Abigail Hobbs.”

“The girl you were supposed to have killed and eaten?”

“That one, yeah.”

“Why are you hiding her? You were exonerated.”

“It’s complicated. People would ask a lot of questions. I don’t really trust anyone at the moment.”

“That’s a good policy. It’s usually mine. I kind of trust you though.” Margot doesn’t dwell on the admission. “Is she the reason you were attacked?”

“What?”

“Will, I’m not an idiot. I know a damn stag didn’t come through your window. Someone attacked you. Who was it?”

Well, he’s in it now. Might as well tell her everything. “Another one of Dr. Lecter’s patients. Randall Tier.”

“My fucking goodness, what a lot of pawns that man has. Did you kill him?”

“Yes.”

“How did it feel?”

“Good.”

She looks up at him, openly curious. “Did you feel liberated?”

Will takes her hand. “Randall Tier wasn’t the one I needed to liberate myself from.”

“Pity. You’re still trapped, then. Both of us are.”

Will shakes his head. “Show him how strong you are. Survive him.”

“Always have.” She squeezes his fingers, and her thumb brushes over the raised skin on his knuckles. After a while, she says, “Want to trade scars now? We never did do that.”

 

Abigail is walking up the stairs from the wine cellar when she hears the front door open and slam shut. Reaching the landing, she sees Will. He doesn’t see her. He’s not wearing a jacket, or his glasses, and he’s not carrying anything. His sleeves have already been rolled up to the elbow. He stalks down the hall so fast she only has time to press herself against the wall before he passes. She follows him, hurried but silent, as far as she dares, and then shrinks down next to the kitchen door, hoping the shadows are enough to hide her, still clutching the bottle of Prosecco Hannibal had sent her for.

Hannibal has removed his apron and is tucking it into a drawer when, without uttering a word, Will grabs the front of Hannibal’s shirt and punches him in the jaw.

Hannibal touches his face with a hand as Will shoves him against the fridge without loosening his grip. “Rude, Will,” he says calmly. “In my own home?”

Will twists the shirt in his hand until his knuckles are white, and wraps his other hand around Hannibal’s neck. “How could you do that?”

There is a pause in which Abigail expects Hannibal to say,  _Do what, Will?_  but he doesn’t.

When Hannibal doesn’t answer, doesn’t move a muscle, Will pulls him forward slightly and slams his head back against the fridge. “Did you see her?” He isn’t yelling, but he might as well be. “Did you see what they did to her?”

“I can imagine,” Hannibal replies tonelessly.

“You don’t care about Margot – of course you don’t. You don’t care that they chopped up her insides. But that was  _my child_  that got butchered, Hannibal. My  _child_.”

“Hardly,” Hannibal says, and Abigail shudders at the cruelty of it. “Barely five weeks if I calculate correctly.”

“You always  _calculate_  correctly,” Will snarls.

“Not really a child, then.”

Will’s fingers finally begin to tighten around Hannibal’s throat. Hannibal looks bored. When Will speaks next, there is so much hatred and anger in his voice, Abigail wonders how Hannibal is still alive. How Will hasn’t killed him yet.

“You give and you give, and then you think it’s your right to take away. You take as you please. How can I trust you not to take Abigail from me again, just because you can?”

“Abigail is our family.”

“You think my own flesh and blood doesn’t count as family?”

“It counts as your family. Not ours.”

Abigail’s palms are so sweaty she almost drops the Prosecco.

Will lets go of Hannibal’s shirt slowly, and drops his hand from Hannibal’s throat. She still can’t see Will’s face, but Hannibal’s eyes narrow slightly when Will takes half a step back and tilts his head to one side.

Then Will’s knuckles make contact again and the blow to his ear makes Hannibal stumble and almost fall. Will gets his hands around Hannibal’s neck again, but Hannibal is better prepared this time and slings his fist into Will’s gut. Will is only winded for a second, but it is enough for Hannibal to tackle him to the floor. Straddling his hips, he grinds Will’s left shoulder roughly into the floor. Ever measured, he punches Will twice, quickly, in his side.

Through the tearing pain in whatever organ Hannibal has just pummeled, Will focuses enough to head-butt Hannibal and shove him away. Hannibal lands on his side, lip bleeding profusely where he’d bitten it, but gets to one knee again almost immediately.

He’s fast, but so is Will. Hannibal launches himself forward, and Will ducks around him, managing to trap both of Hannibal’s arms behind his back. He doesn’t do this to cause pain. He grabs Hannibal’s upper left arm and squeezes the flesh over a phantom crack in the bone.

The splintered humerus had healed decades ago. The sharp twinges of pain he feels now and then are purely psychological, but Hannibal knows this is Will’s way of saying,  _I know your weaknesses too, remember?_

With a backwards wrench of his arm, Will spits, “Why do you have to control everything?” 

They struggle for a minute, but now it looks half-hearted. When Hannibal returns the head-butt and Will’s skull cracks against the tiles, he doesn’t bother getting up. He lies there, flat on his back, motionless. Hannibal remains predatory and doesn’t seem to notice the change in Will until he is once again straddling the man’s hips, this time pressing both shoulders into the floor with equal roughness. He lets up and releases his shoulders when Will says, “How can you call us a family?” All the anger is gone from his voice. “We’re just the result of your taking away the ones we already had.”

Will is still pinned down on the floor. Abigail can see his face, now. He’s done fighting. He’s not scared. He hasn’t been bested by Hannibal. He’s just done.

After what feels like hours, Abigail sees the muscles in Hannibal’s back relax. She finally loosens her hold on the bottle sets it on the floor beside her, wiping her hands on her jeans and taking stock of how much she’s shaking.

Will is moving slowly, unthreateningly, keeping every part of himself still except his hands. He unbuttons his own pants and pulls down the zipper, and then does the same with Hannibal’s. He doesn’t seem to care that Hannibal hasn’t answered a single one of his questions. He reaches down almost casually to take him in hand.

A short huff of breath and an almost microscopic twitch of hips is all the reaction Will gets. He still doesn’t seem to mind. “This is what you want, right? To have me?” His voice is toneless when he says, “Just take me then. Take me like you’ve taken everything else.”

Hannibal removes Will’s hand and, with his own hand, cups Will’s cheek. Then he zips up his pants and buttons them, and does the same with Will’s. He moves as slowly as Will had moved. When he’s gotten smoothly to his feet, he reaches a hand down. Will takes it, allowing Hannibal to help him stand. Hannibal’s arm wraps loosely around Will’s waist and the two of them walk, footsteps synced, out of the kitchen and straight past Abigail into the hall.

Three quarters of the way down it, Hannibal stops and gives Will a gentle push forwards with a hand on the small of his back. His voice is equally gentle – deadly gentle – when he says, “Get out.” It’s too dark for Abigail to make out the look on Will’s face, but something in his expression completely unravels Hannibal’s calm. He grabs Will’s collar at the back of his neck and drags him the rest of the way to the door. Then he yanks the door open and literally throws Will out.

Abigail jumps at the sound of the door slamming for the second time this evening. Hannibal turns and looks right at her, as if he’d known all along she was standing there. Her heart pounds as he walks back up the hall, face stony and unreadable. Only his bloody lip and slightly labored breathing give away that anything at all has just happened. Without speaking or pausing, he turns into the study and closes the door.

 

Three men die at the hands of Will Graham before he sees or speaks to Hannibal again. Two of them are Mason’s men. One he uses to get into the barn and then shoots just after Mason drawls, “You must be the baby-daddy.” The other’s throat is slit in the course of Will’s escape. Someone will disappear the bodies, he knows this. Someone has to feed the pigs.

Will’s third kill is reckless and he regrets it immediately. It’s a murderer that had walked, due to some FBI fuckup with the paperwork. Will and Jack had worked that case not even a year ago.  _Reckless_. He knows the only thing that will keep people from suspecting him is the Bureau’s embarrassment over his wrongful imprisonment; no one will want to be the first to point a finger at him.  _Still reckless._ He runs over everything with a cloth, getting rid of any fingerprints, but doesn’t stage a robbery or a suicide. Partly because he doesn’t want to, and partly because the more elaborate a scene, the greater the risk of leaving evidence. Unless, of course, you’re Hannibal Lecter.

 

“He’s fine as long as I don’t mention you.”

“Abigail –”

“I’m kidding. Sorry. Bad taste, I know. He seems almost totally normal, except, whenever your name comes up he turns into Hannibal Lecter, Living Statue. Anyway, I’m not scared he’ll hurt me. You shouldn’t worry about that either.”

Abigail still calls him every night to reassure him she’s alright. She doesn’t ask about what had happened in the kitchen.

 

One night, she says, “Can I come stay with you for a couple weeks? Hannibal suggested it,” she adds, before he can ask.

“If you want to.”

“Yeah, I do.” Abigail can hear his smile through the phone.

Will clears his throat. “Why did Hannibal suggest this?” He wants to know, but he doesn’t know  _why_  he wants to know, so he adds, “Had enough of being subjected to Abigailian psychology?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. Can you pick me up tomorrow?”

“Yeah. Not sure what time though. We’re wrapping up a case. I’ll call when I’m on my way.”

 

It isn’t his crime they’ve been investigating – Virginia homicide had claimed that, aggressively, so it’s likely no one at the Bureau knows anything besides a name in the paper. In fact the tiny, one paragraph article had been wedged in between two others on page five. It’s likely no one has heard of this single, measly, uninteresting murder at all. Virginia and her sister states are used to “multiple dead” in the headlines, and the grandiose displays of the Chesapeake Ripper.

_Still reckless. Don’t do it again._

 

Margot calls as he’s about to leave Quantico the next day. He turns the engine off and waits for her to speak. She tells him they’re releasing her from hospital tomorrow. It’s clearly not why she’s calling, but he’s relieved and asks her if she has somewhere to stay.

“Judy’s still overseas. I may have had a friend cancel her credit cards. That’s not what I wanted to tell you though.”

Will sighs at the complete lack of an answer, but lets Margot change the subject.

“My brother has been by to crow over me a lot the past couple days. He won’t stop talking about Dr. Lecter. He’s up to something. It probably involves killing Dr. Lecter.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Because, unlike Dr. Lecter, I have a halfway functional conscience. Do you know what’s going on?”

“I wish I did and I’m glad I don’t. I imagine Dr. Lecter does, though.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure. Mason has a lot of resources at his disposal. Sometimes being the richer man is better than being the smarter man.”

Will grunts in agreement and starts the car up. “Where are you staying?” he tries again.

“A hotel, until I decide what to do now.”

“Right,” he says, which she correctly interprets as meaning  _that’s not going to happen_. “See you tomorrow.” He hangs up before she can make some dark remark to try and put him off, and gives Abigail a quick call as he’s pulling out of the lot.

 

The door opens immediately when Will knocks, and Abigail picks up her bag, ready to go.

He stops her. “Can I come in for a minute?”

She opens the door wider to let him through. They walk down the hall together and Abigail stays close beside him, shoulder bumping his arm with every step.

He puts a hand on her elbow and keeps it there, as if to say,  _I’m not going to make you wait outside_ , then knocks sharply on the study door and opens it without waiting for a response.

“Hannibal.”

Hannibal puts down his pen slowly. “Yes, Will?” He smooths the thin red ribbon down the page, closes his notebook carefully, and aligns the bottom with the edge of his desk, before placing the pen flush against its spine. Abigail had once called it  _Hannibal’s version of fidgeting_. He stops.

“Are you listening?”

He nods once and fixes Will with a cool gaze.

“Mason isn’t happy with your therapy. They’re probably coming for you.”

Hannibal waits for the rest, but Will doesn’t say anything else and, after a minute, leaves with Abigail.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [My twitter](https://twitter.com/ES_Therru)   
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	7. Normal Teenage Behaviour

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everything's a little fucked up. Everyone's a little on edge. They're all vaguely aware that shit's about to go down.
> 
> Will wants a family and is appalled that he wants it with Hannibal. Hannibal isn't helping matters.
> 
> Seriously, why isn't Hannibal helping?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to my beautiful murderwife, [Kate](http://archiveofourown.org/users/asprigofzest/pseuds/asprigofzest), for beta-ing! She is [@weesprigofzest](http://weesprigofzest.tumblr.com) on tumblr.

For the first time since he’s known her, Abigail isn’t awake when Will gets up in the morning. Margot hadn’t said what time she’d be released – of course she hadn’t – but he thinks 10am is a safe bet. He calls the hospital at 8am just to be safe. It’s early enough that Abigail would probably want coffee instead of tea, so he pours her a cup, which he takes, along with a pen and a partially completed grocery list, upstairs.

There’s no answer when he knocks on her door. “Abigail?” He opens it after a minute and sees her roll over sleepily and pull the covers over her head. He crosses the room to put her coffee down on the bedside table that had been delivered with the mattress and a small armchair. The latter she has pulled right up to the window and there is already a little pile of books on the sill. He’s happy she has somewhere private to read when it’s too cold to sit on the porch.

Abigail groans out a  _what?_  and pokes her head out of the nest of blankets when he taps her on her enshrouded forehead.

“What’s the matter? This is practically midday for you.”

She grumbles something about being tired, and Will says something about having figured that out on his own, thank you.

“I came to see if you have anything to add to this.” He holds the shopping list obnoxiously close to her nose. She snatches it and he hands over the pen, smiling at how grumpy she looks as she leans up on one elbow to write.

“What’s all this?” he asks when she hands it back.

She shrugs. “Thought I’d make dinner for us tonight.” She flops back down on her pillow. “Thanks for the coffee,” she says and pulls the covers back over her face. “Go away now, please.”

Downstairs, Will pours a cup of coffee for himself and wonders why Abigail had adopted, apparently overnight, what he assumes is normal teenage behaviour.

 

“So, despite my best efforts, you still haven’t called Judy.”

“Despite my best efforts, you’re still taking me home.” Margot frowns, watching Will sign her discharge papers.

He ignores her half-hearted protest. “I don’t know how you’ve managed to keep her in the dark,” he says.

She waits until they’re in the car, her things packed away in the trunk, before replying. “I probably haven’t. That’s why I cancelled her cards.”

“Jesus, Margot. You won’t even talk to her?”

“It will make it worse for both of us.” She decides not to pretend she’s a better person than she is. “I don’t want to talk to her if I can’t have her here.”

Will drops it and they are silent most of the way to the pharmacy and then the grocery store. When Will returns to the car with everything, Margot is asleep.

 

She sleeps most of the afternoon, even through the calamity that is Abigail trying to follow an actual recipe. Will tries not to, because he knows she’d hate it – he would – but between having no caseload, and feeling it might be physically hazardous to try and help Abigail, he can’t help checking on Margot every half hour. It soothes his nerves for about five minutes each time.

He takes the dogs out, but stays near the house while his anxiety steadily builds for no identifiable reason.

At dinner, after swallowing a veritable cornucopia of pills, Margot thanks Will for giving up his bed. She doesn’t argue with him on the sleeping arrangements. It would be a stupid thing to pretend to disagree about. She thanks Abigail for dinner.

Abigail’s  _you’re welcome_  is almost a whisper. She’s uncharacteristically shy for the whole meal, until Margot’s head starts to droop, and Abigail asks if she’s tired.

“It’s just the medication,” Margot explains. “It’s a fun little cocktail.” She smiles drowsily and Will helps her back to bed.

When he returns to the kitchen, a moody Abigail is spooning leftovers into some frowned-upon plastic Tupperware containers. “I’ll clear up, kid,” he says.

“Okay.” She brings the rest of the dirty dishes to the sink while he fills it.

“Unless you wanna tell me what’s going on with you today.”

She opens her mouth, but quickly closes it again and shakes her head. “Maybe tomorrow.” Suddenly she wraps her arms around his waist and squeezes him in a tight hug.

“Um.” Will holds his soapy hands away and tries to somehow hug her with his elbows.

She’s gone too quickly for him to claim success on that.

 

Will sleeps restlessly that night. The ravenstag and Will’s two new darkling companions are now familiar features in his dreams. At some point in the night, his mind replaces the word  _rebirth_  with  _becoming_. He is allowed to resume his tradition of setting the stag’s corpse alight, but he wakes before he can bury the ashes.

 

The next morning, Abigail is back to waking Will up with coffee. She suggests they take Margot down to the stream after breakfast.

“I don’t know,” he says, taking the coffee and sitting up. “Last time the path was pretty rough.”

Abigail shoves his blankets aside and perches at the other end of the couch. “I cleared it weeks ago. When I was staying here before.” She looks at him quizzically.

Will is thrown by the idea, no, the  _fact_  that he hasn’t been out that far, hasn’t fished  _once_  since Jack had started piling on the clandestine projects. “I’m so sorry, Abigail.” He shakes his head in frustration.

“It’s okay,” she says lightly. “I just can’t believe you haven’t been down there in so long. Do you need an aspirin?”

Will is rubbing his eyes forcefully with the fingers of one hand. “It’s not a migraine.” He enjoys the dark array of colours parading over the backs of his eyelids and says, “I’m just trying to remember why I’m doing this.”

“Doing what?”

Will realizes belatedly how that must have sounded to her. “Sorry – helping Jack. Teaching classes. Consulting on cases…” When he lifts his head, she’s looking at him with her head tilted to one side. She looks sympathetic, or maybe just attentive. Her gaze doesn’t hold the same shrewdness that Hannibal’s does when he adopts that same pose – calculating something, or sizing up a situation. Or, sizing up a person. Will wonders if he himself has picked up the same habit, and what it looks like to others if he has. “Sometimes I have to think really hard to get at the answer,” he continues. “Sometimes I don’t know why I haven’t boarded a plane with you a hundred times already.”

“What  _is_  the answer to that?”

“In a really convoluted way, we have a slightly better chance of escaping if we wait a little longer.”

“Hm.” Abigail smiles into her coffee. “Great job selling it, Will.”

 

Margot doesn’t feel up to doing much yet, so they take a shorter walk, wandering unhurriedly over the flats. The dogs toss themselves at each other, play-fighting, or chase unseen critters back into the trees. Winston trots back and forth, returning to Margot’s side every time.

“Yeah, you’d better get used to that.” Will chuckles and Margot smiles down at the dog.

“And don’t bother trying to hide it if you’re sad,” Abigail adds. “Winston always knows, don’t you Winston?” Winston barks an agreement.

After this, the silence is less awkward, and Abigail gets past her shyness from last night to ask, “What do you do?”

Margot is unperturbed by Abigail’s non-sequitur. She’s no better at making conversation flow – one of the many reasons her family had dubbed her _weird_. “Well, if I had a job instead of a jail-keeper, I guess I’d be a programmer.”

“Computer stuff.”

“Yes. I have a masters in cryptography. I’d have my PhD by now if it weren’t for Mason.”

“What did he do?”

“He  _advised_  the board to drop me as a candidate.”

“Why would he do that?”

Will says quietly, “Because if you had a doctorate, you’d be employable elsewhere.”

Margot nods. “He won’t let me go. He thinks I know too much, or that what I don’t know, I’ll figure out.” She laughs darkly. “Should be a compliment.”

“I thought maybe he just likes to torture you.”

“That’s arguably his primary motivation. My involvement in the estate’s security is just an inconvenience for someone who employs professional kidnappers and has assassins on retainer.” She sighs. “Can we go back?”

Will whistles for the dogs, and in the ensuing bustle of wagging tails and excited yaps, Margot softly asks if Abigail has any pads.

Abigail looks at her wide-eyed. “You’re still bleeding?”

“Just a little,” Margot assures her. “It’s only been a week.”

When they’re inside, Abigail shoos Will away and helps Margot to bed instead.

“I’ll get some pads for you.” She stops in the doorway and turns, the question already out of her mouth before it’s fully formed. “Professional kidnapping is a thing?”

Margot gets under the covers and replies, “It’s not something you want to advertise. From what I gather, it just means you’re quite good at capturing people but don’t have the stomach for the assassination part of assassinating.”

“Well that can’t be very lucrative,” Abigail says with a nervous chuckle.

“No. It’s an  _all dogs are animals but not all animals are dogs_  type deal.”

When Abigail returns, Margot asks, “Why did you want to know?”

Abigail shrugs. “I don’t understand the point. Why does Mason have both? If one can do the job?”

“Oh. I see. Probably because of Carlo.”

Abigail waits, unsure whether or not she’s supposed to know who that is.

“Carlo Degracias is Mason’s number one. He’s a dog and an animal.” Margot frowns around the word. “He does _anything_ Mason asks him to…” She closes her eyes momentarily before continuing to explain. “But only if his little brother, Matteo, gets to come along for the ride.”

“Matteo’s just a dog?”

“Yes.”

Abigail huffs a sigh and turns to leave. “That’s messed up,” she says. “Do you want the light off?”

 

After lunch, Abigail and Will go down to the stream together. They leave the dogs and a note for Margot in case she wakes up.

They settle themselves on the embankment and Abigail asks if he’s working tomorrow.

“Bright and early,” he says, and yawns, already anticipating how tired he’ll be. “But the good thing is they have to set the trial date tomorrow.”

Abigail smiles. “An actual  _date_  to work with...”

“Is that what’s been bothering you?”

Abigail shakes her head.

Will leans back on his hands. “I have a confession myself, if you’re not ready to talk yet.”

She looks at him with interest. “What’s that?”

“I – uh – killed someone.” Then, with a wry smile he amends his statement. “Three someones, actually.”

“I’m guessing you mean recently.”

“Quite recently, yeah.”

“Do you feel guilty?”

“No.” He pinches his eyebrows together and lets out a breath of a laugh. “And I don’t feel guilty about not feeling guilty.”

“You monster,” Abigail teases, looking back out over the stream. “Why’d you do it?”

“They were murderers.”

Abigail waits for him to continue, knowing that that’s never been enough for Will to justify killing to himself.

“Two of them were an immediate threat. The last one was me… wrapping up an old case. And being very,  _very_  stupid.”

They are quiet for a while. Will closes his eyes and listens to the stream.

Abigail says, very softly, “You don’t have to tell me everything, you know.”

Will opens his eyes and turns his head to look at her. “Is that because you don’t want to tell  _me_  something?”

She punches him with her small, painfully sharp knuckles. “Okay, you don’t have to  _explain_  everything. Hannibal doesn’t. I don’t understand a single one of his kills after he took out the men who murdered Mischa.”

Will doesn’t say anything.

Abigail looks mortified. “I thought you knew.”

“I made inferences.”

“I shouldn’t have said that.”

“Don’t worry about it, Abigail.”

“Why?”

“He didn’t tell me explicitly what happened, but when Hannibal says someone  _died_ , you have to ask yourself  _how?_  There aren’t many answers to that question,” he says, trying to reassure her.

She doesn’t look reassured.

“Really. Either Mischa died naturally, or he killed her, or somebody else killed her.”

“It could have been any of those, though.”

“No, it couldn’t. Think about it.”

Abigail looks out over the water for a while, pondering. “He says her name like he loved her.”

“And?”

“And like he failed her. If he’d killed her, he’d regret it.”

Will nods. “And Hannibal doesn’t regret his kills.”

“What if she died naturally?”

“He wouldn’t see that as a failure on his part. Nature can’t be held accountable for her crimes.”

“But men can.”

“Yes.”

“I see.”

They are quiet for a long time after that. Will feels slightly guilty for so blatantly encouraging Abigail to dissect Hannibal’s psyche. “Does it bother you that he doesn’t explain the other ones?”

“Not enough to matter,” she answers with a shrug. “Does it bother you?”

“Sometimes. A lot, actually.” After a pause he says, “I want to tell you these things. It feels better saying them out loud.”

“Okay.” Abigail’s smile is easy once more. Sweet, even.

“So.”

“What?”

“Your turn. What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know exactly.” She chews her lip. “I’m pretty confused right now. What are you and Hannibal doing?” She looks, to Will, like she had that day on the library steps – young and insecure. “You don’t have to be together for me, but I like it when it’s the three of us. I think _you_ do, too.”

“I don’t know if I have it in me to keep forgiving him.”

“That’s what family is. Are we a family or not?”

 _Shit_. Will closes his eyes and covers his face with his hands in horror, feeling sick to his stomach at the thought of her witnessing what she obviously had witnessed. “You were there... in the kitchen...” For the second time that day he says, “I’m so sorry, Abigail.”

Abigail is on the edge of tears, though they are mostly tears of relief. She doesn’t have to pretend anymore that she thinks he and Hannibal just had a spat and are being immature about it. She could admit to Will, if she wanted to, that hearing them talk that way made her want to run for the hills, and that she almost had.

When he can bear to look at her again, Will sees that Abigail is about to cry. There’s no rapid fluttering of eyelashes that used to accompany her calculated displays of emotion. The displays meant for people seeking obvious markers of grief, and fear. People who wouldn’t have noticed the way she straightens her back slightly but lowers her chin the tiniest amount; or the quick open-mouthed inhale and drawing in of her lower lip before her mouth settles into a pout and the tears begin to flow. Will wonders if the lessened theatrics are part of the growing up she’d done while he was locked away, or if this is another moment of the unguarded sincerity she allows when it’s just the two of them.

It doesn’t matter. He tugs her in close and wraps both arms around her. “I’m sorry,” he says again. “I will never talk to you like that. You and I are family. And you and Hannibal are family. We’re going to take care of you, no matter how we feel about each other.”

“You want all three of us to be a family,” she sniffles into his shoulder. “I know you do.”

“You said I didn’t have to explain everything to you…” he tries with a small smile.

She whacks him on the arm without lifting her head. “I’d really like you to explain  _this_.”

He strokes her hair with one hand and curls a lock around his finger thoughtfully. “More has happened in my life in the past two years than in the previous two decades.” He says it quietly, like an admission. “And just about every _bad_ thing that’s happened, I blame on Hannibal.  _Entirely_  on Hannibal.”

“He’s done a lot of bad stuff,” Abigail whispers around her tears. “More than I know. More than I  _want_  to know.”

Will nods. “There are times when I’m so angry with Hannibal, I can’t breathe. I can’t see, or think or… be anything… except maybe that man filled with dark and swarming flies...”

Abigail doesn’t say anything.

“Sometimes I hate him.” He shakes his head, trying to remember which of them he’s explaining himself to.

“But sometimes you love him.”

“Yes.” He pulls back to look at her face. “And at those times, I see the same future  _you_  see all the time.” He wipes a tear away with his thumb. “It’s pretty great,” he adds, when she starts to smile.

There’s a drip threatening to fall, and an absence of tissues. She wipes her nose on the back of her hand.

“Gross.” Will laughs, and pulls her back into a hug. They stay that way until she’s all cried out, and the shoulder of his shirt is covered in a layer of snot and tears.

 

Things happen in quick succession after that.

 

“Trial starts June 4th,” Will tells Abigail when he gets home the next day. “It’s a closed trial, though – we’ll only hear the verdict.”

Abigail frowns. “Don’t you think that’s a little suspicious?”

“Yes, I do. Which is why I’m going to visit Miriam Lass in the morning.”

“Margot’s been in bed all day,” she reports. “She had a glass of water but I couldn’t get her to eat anything.”

Later, when Abigail tells her dinner is ready, Margot says she isn’t hungry. Will and Abigail eat dinner together on the couch, each wrapped up in their own thoughts.

 

Around 10pm, Margot wakes up absolutely drenched in sweat. Will finds her crying while stuffing her sheets into the washing machine. He takes her by the shoulders and gently but firmly leads her to the bathroom. She drops down to sit on the edge of the tub and undresses, apparently giving absolutely no shits that he is still in the room. He sets the shower running and puts a clean towel for her over the side of the sink within arm’s reach. He picks up her sweaty clothes to add to the load, and goes to change the sheets.

He waits in the living room until he hears the water stop and the bedroom door close, and, after a few minutes, goes and knocks on the door with the cordless phone in his hand.

“I’m not asking,” Will says, as he holds it out to her.

Margot swallows and looks down at it. She nods.

A little while later, she finds him dozing on the couch. He rubs his face and straightens up when she come in.

“I called the bank.” Her voice is as low and raw as it had been the first day he’d visited her in the hospital. “I can’t– Can you call Judy? I put the number in already…”

He takes the phone and she retreats to the bedroom, lip trembling. When he joins her, maybe twenty minutes later, she’s regained her composure.

“Better?” Will asks.

Margot nods. “I’m sorry about the sheets.”

“It’s really not a problem,” he says. “I used to get night sweats so bad I thought I’d drown in my sleep.”

Her mouth twitches up slightly.

“I’m going to pick Judy up at the airport Wednesday afternoon. You weren’t kidding about the running.”

 

At the BSHCI, Chilton’s replacement tells Will that Miriam Lass isn’t allowed to have any visitors besides her lawyer until the trial. Aside from this being a ridiculous claim to make, Will is pretty sure Jack visits Miriam every Thursday afternoon; there is always a blissful two hours of Jack-free BAU from 2-4pm – but he is shown out of the building before he can argue.

He arrives at Quantico ridiculously early, having allowed plenty of time to talk with Miriam and find out what the hell she and Jack are up to. He locks himself in the lecture hall until his first class and forces himself to address the criminal amount of marking he’d been putting off. He’d started getting dirty looks from students over a week ago.

 _No marking. No cases. No Jack-endorsed side projects. No Hannibal-baiting…_  Will tries to think what he’s been doing with his time. It makes his head hurt.

The students mill cautiously around a glowering Jack to get to the door after the last lecture of the day. As soon as the hall is empty again but for the two of them, Jack lays into Will about his excuse for not setting their trap yet. Admittedly, he’s worn the excuse pretty thin.

“If the Ripper kills again while you’re  _establishing trust_ , I’m pulling the plug on this operation.”

“Fine, Jack,” Will says tiredly, trying not to let on what a relief that would be. “That’s your call.”

“And I’ll have you both arrested for conspiracy to commit murder,” Jack threatens.

Will narrows his eyes at him. “I’m starting to think I no longer enjoy your full confidence, Jack.” He leaves the lecture hall and pops an aspirin, trying to ignore the feeling of the walls closing in.

 

Judy dresses well in clothes that are expensive and well cared for, but plain. One could imagine her completing a number of varied tasks throughout the day. Her dark hair is just long enough to tie in a knot at the base of her skull, and, overall, she exudes an air of extreme competence.

They don’t talk much on the drive to Wolf Trap. She thanks him for calling her, he apologizes for not calling sooner, and they lapse into silence.

Abigail is, as usual, reading on the porch, and helps them carry Judy’s luggage into the house. Margot is standing in the doorway of the living room looking helpless. Judy traverses the length of the room and puts a hand to each of Margot’s cheeks. She looks into her face for a fraction of a second before covering it with gentle kisses. Then she pulls Margot all the way into her arms and just holds her.

Will thinks,  _Oh, this is what it looks like when two people love each other_. He just sees Margot’s face crumple before he looks away.

Suddenly, Margot lets loose a sob – just one, but the sound is so much like a repressed scream, Will’s stomach flips and his heart flutters in panic. He puts down the rest of Judy’s luggage and takes Abigail’s elbow, guiding them onto the porch and shutting the door behind them.

Will rubs a hand over his face and sits, trying to slow his heart with a couple deep breaths that are exhaled as sighs. Abigail doesn’t pretend anything when she cuddles up against Will this time. He puts his arm around her, a little tighter than usual.

After a while he says, “I need to talk to Hannibal. I don’t think we should wait much longer.”

Abigail looks confused. “You said–”

“I was wrong. Jack’s on the warpath... and he’s up to something.”

 

Hannibal doesn’t answer the phone when Will calls him shortly after Judy settles in. He doesn’t pick up the call Will makes as he lets the dogs out, or the one he makes as he lets them back in.

He goes to the kitchen and throws together a sandwich. The bedroom door is only closed three quarters of the way, so he nudges it open and goes in. Judy is sitting up in bed with a passed-out Margot in her lap. She mouths  _thank you_  when Will puts the sandwich down on the bedside table.

Hannibal doesn’t pick up the call Will makes shortly before he, too, passes out.

 

The next afternoon, Will gets a text from Freddie Lounds, just as Jack is leaving for what is likely his weekly visit with Miriam Lass.

_This is getting old, Mr. Graham._

He wastes no time lying.

_Have a hell of a story for you. Give me a week._

She responds immediately.

_Consider me placated. For now._

The aspirin doesn’t do anything for the rattled feeling he has for the rest of the work day and the drive home.

 

At home, Will’s unease is replaced by Abigail’s near hysteria.

“I called his house, his cell, and his office, a hundred times each!” She hands Will the phone as soon as he walks in the door, as though he can do something with it to make Hannibal pick up.

He drops his briefcase and hits redial, giving Abigail’s shoulder a squeeze. They walk down the hall to the kitchen slowly as the phone continues to ring in his ear. When he’s redialed all three numbers and double checked that they’re all correct, he lowers the phone onto the kitchen counter, not knowing immediately what to think.

“He left without us.” Abigail paces the width of the kitchen. “Oh my god. He left without us!”

“Or someone took him.” Margot appears in the doorway and goes to the sink, where she fills a glass of water and swallows down her medication  _cocktail_.

Will nods as he comes to the same conclusion himself, and pinches the bridge of his nose. “You think Mason has him.”

She holds out the glass and he takes it. He knocks back another aspirin, effectively losing count.

“I’m positive he does.”

“Will he be at Muskrat Farm?”

She nods. “In the barn in the northeast corner.” She hesitates. “You’ll probably hear the pigs.”

Will lets out a heavy sigh and stretches his back. “I’m going to sleep for a fucking year after this.” He darts a glance at Abigail, who just gives him a one-shouldered shrug and represses a smirk.

Before Will even begins to voice a plan, she says, “Can I come?”

Even wrapped in worry, he has a feeling right to his core that it would be wrong of him to say no.

 

Only when they are on the highway an hour later does Will recognize that he and Abigail had both been  _calmed_  by Margot’s suggestion. They’d both preferred the idea of a potential bloodbath to the idea of being left behind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [My twitter](https://twitter.com/ES_Therru)   
>  [My tumblr](http://es-therru.tumblr.com)   
>  [Our Etsy store](https://www.etsy.com/ca/shop/TheseAreHerDesigns)


	8. Appropriate Footwear for Murdering

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Murder Family badassery. Hannibal and Will engage in some dirty (literally), adrenaline-fueled sex. Dub-con, because everything they do is dubious and rarely consented to. Abigail is a good little murder daughter.
> 
> Trigger Warnings: violence, blood, guns, knives, gross imagery, scary-ass stampeding pigs

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thank you to [asprigofzest](http://archiveofourown.org/users/asprigofzest) for beta-ing! <3 This chapter was a bitch to write, and Kate is endlessly supportive. Also, check out [her tumblr page](http://weesprigofzest.tumblr.com).

Before they leave, Will appraises their conditions as though he is the authority on appropriate footwear for murdering people in, and on what to bring to a knife fight. He makes Abigail promise at least five times in the car, before they even get onto the highway, that she will run if things don’t look good for them.

He says little after that. Abigail reads and rereads Margot’s instructions in the fading daylight. She’d written down how to disable the electronic locks and alarms of three different gates. She’d suggested they use the one at the end of the service road, because Mason’s henchmen prefer to be their own security, and because it will get them as close to the barn as possible. Abigail memorizes the backups just in case.

Will takes his phone out of his pocket and hands it to Abigail. “Can you text Jack for me?”

“Can I say something really mean?”

Will laughs a little. “Just tell him it’s a family emergency. That alone should make him furious.”

Abigail raises her eyebrows and shakes her head. “Right. Because, how dare you.” She makes the text succinct with a vague promise to be in on Monday. She sticks the phone in one of the cup holders and goes back to memorizing the instructions. It takes almost two hours to get to Muskrat Farm. They approach the estate from the east, and quickly come upon the dirt road that skirts the northeast corner. It is well hidden, as Margot had warned them it would be.

As the lights from the main road disappear behind them and they find themselves surrounded by unlit woodland, the surreal feeling from the night drive quickly leaves Will, and he’s left with only a sense of danger and inevitability. What exactly is inevitable, Will doesn’t know. He looks over at Abigail. She’s leaning forward, trying to see as far ahead as she can. She’s never been afraid of the dark, or the woods, but she’s jiggling her left leg up and down and fingering her hunting knife in its sheath. A little anxious, maybe, but not scared. Will feels better.

As soon as they can see a break in the trees and lights beyond it, Will turns off the headlights and they roll towards the gate, hopefully unseen.

“Can I have your pocket knife?”

Will hands it to her and retrieves a flashlight from the glove box. The moon is only just rising.

Abigail pries open the metal box embedded in the brickwork next to the gate. She motions for him to come closer and he shines the light on the inner panel. Using the tiny pliers on the knife, she pulls two sets of wires loose and swaps them, before punching in the code for the gate mechanism.

“What was that with the wires,” Will asks as they get back into the car. “If you knew the gate code?” He switches off the tail lights as well and they drive through. The gate shuts behind them after only a few seconds.

“Margot said to do that just in case someone’s paying attention. There are no cameras, but there are electronic records of the dates and times the gate mechanism is employed. If someone happened to be in the security office, they might get a notification.” Abigail shrugs. “She said it’s really unlikely, but it’s easy enough to rewire it so the monitor is disconnected without thinking it’s disconnected or whatever.”

“I think this might have been what Hannibal meant when he said it’s not necessary for you to go back to school.”

Abigail grins.

 

Will parks about fifty yards from the barn on the other side of an enormous haystack. When they reach the barn on foot with no trouble, Will thinks this has been disappointingly easy so far. He hopes that means Mason has just grown complacent, and not that they’re about to enter into an area of highly concentrated risk.

Abigail looks explicitly let down by the lack of action. She takes the gun Will hands her and pouts when he makes her holster it. “What are you going to use?” she asks.

“My hands, I guess.”

“Seriously? If you’re going to give me the gun at least take my knife.”

He takes the hunting knife. It had sounded incredibly stupid coming out of his mouth, and he’s surprised she doesn’t harass him further about it.

The barn is huge. They edge towards the side door closest to what appears to be a large outdoor pen annexed to the north face of the barn. Margot was right. They can hear the pigs.

“He’s alive,” Abigail whispers and waves Will over. She has her face pressed against the outer wall and can apparently see through the wooden siding.

Will joins her and, sure enough, they can clearly see the platform, part of the maze, and Hannibal – alive, but in a very unfortunate position. He is hooked onto a cable that is attached to some sort of mobile winch. The track leads from the very back of the platform to the center of the hole in the roof of the maze, below which the pigs are presumably waiting, hungry. He is trussed up in a straitjacket, and barefoot.

Abigail scans the inside of the barn. There’s only one person she can see besides Hannibal. “I think that must be either Carlo or Matteo. Where’s Mason?”

“If Mason’s not here yet, Hannibal’s safe for now,” Will says, and squeezes her shoulder. He indicates with a nod of his head towards the south side of the barn. “We should check around before we go in. Not really in the mood for an ambush.”

“Shouldn’t one of us wait here?”

“Probably.” Will smiles at her when she casually outmatches his tactical skills. “Still have my pocket knife? Keep it.” Will leaves her, quickly and quietly disappearing around the corner.

Abigail crouches down and puts her eye back to the gap. Hannibal is swinging very slightly from side to side and the cable rotates just enough that every minute or so she can see his face. He has on that bored look, the one he wears when Abigail thinks he ought to be terrified, or furious.

He’s saying, “You’re a Sardinian. If you have to be kidnapped for ransom, a wealthy Italian will tell you it’s better to fall into the hands of the Sards. And you are a professional revenger as well, I suspect.”

“With you,” Carlo says, flicking open his knife, “It is personal now.”

“I take it Matteo didn’t make it. Did he foul himself? I imagine he smells worse than you by now.”

Abigail pulls Will’s gun out of its holster and prepares to slip through the door. _What the hell is Hannibal doing?_

Carlo advances on Hannibal with slow, menacing steps. Abigail reaches up to grab the door handle, and has opened the door an inch or so when she hears,

“Kill him, and you will get  _no money_! Carlo.  _Carlo!_ ”

Mason appears on the platform and pushes Carlo back sternly just as he grabs onto the front of the straitjacket. Hannibal spins with renewed momentum. When he’s facing the east door again, he makes eye contact with Abigail.

“Apologies, Dr. Lecter, for keeping you in the dark so long. Literally.” Mason giggles. “I think Carlo just forgot you were  _hanging out_  in here.” He strolls casually around the edges of the platform, something tucked under his arm. “I blame myself, too, of course. I’ve had a lot on my mind… family troubles, you understand.”

Hannibal tilts his head as though politely accepting the insincere apology.

Mason stops in front of Hannibal and lifts the skull. “Dr. Lecter, this is Fleet Shadow, Papa’s old racehorse. Or, the only one to ever win anything. Lodgepole Stakes – not much of a victory, but…” He gives an exaggerated shrug and continues to pace about the platform theatrically. “Papa was too cheap to get him stuffed.” He pauses to raise the skull again, this time to the same height as Hannibal’s head, and compares the two. “Still, I think your skull will look very nice, mounted next to Fleet Shadow. I’ll take better care of yours. Papa didn’t even bleach this one.” Mason shakes his head and tuts.

“Am I to be  _your_  only victory, Mason?”

Mason tucks the skull back under his arm and regards Hannibal with an affected thoughtfulness. “You are an odd psychiatrist, Dr. Lecter. We could have had some good, funny times together.” He throws his free hand up in the air with a sigh and walks away from him. “It’s a damn shame!”

 

On the other side of the barn, Will slits the lookout’s throat in the same fashion and with as much remorse as he had the last time. He braces himself for immediate retribution, but, unless Abigail had encountered someone, it seems this evening’s entertainment was to be a three-man operation. Will shakes his head as he looks down at the nameless henchman. If they’d had any trouble at all getting Hannibal here, they should know better than to leave any exit unguarded, or to have fewer than three men tasked solely with watching Hannibal’s every move. Mason shouldn’t be so cocky just because he’s on his home turf.

After driving all the way out here, it’s disappointing to think that their victory will be due mostly to their opponent’s sloppiness. Still, Will can’t say he’s sorry he’ll only have to drop a maximum of two men. He really does just want to sleep for a year. He heaves the dead man over his shoulder and carries him around to the empty outdoor pigpen.

He can just hear Mason’s voice still carrying on inside the barn. Now he’s describing animatedly all the disappointing hybrids he’d created before finding the perfect blend.

“They’ve been bred for maximum aggression. I can’t  _wait_  for you to experience the results first-hand.”

The fence is far too high to simply dump the body over, and Will casts about for a solution.

“Most pigs are opportunistic omnivores, but these… they can smell fear. And they just love it!”

He catches sight of a rough ladder of metal pipes hammered into the fence right by the barn wall. Apparently someone else had had the same problem he’s having. He adjusts the dead weight on his shoulder, breathing heavily.  _Maybe two years._

Inside, Mason continues. “That’s the  _H. meinertzhageni_  in them. Very resourceful. Six teats and thirty-eight chromosomes. It’s known as the giant forest pig.”

“So, you had your ground note. What was your theme?”

Mason is delighted by the question. “ _S. scrofa scrofa_. Twelve teats and thirty-six chromosomes. Known as the European wild boar. No facial warts, just bristles, great ripping tusks, and sharp hooves. Gorgeous. _Gorgeous_. It’s not only about functionality, you see.”

“Certainly not,” Hannibal agrees. “One must take into account aesthetics.”

“Oh yes. Especially since the last thing you will ever see is them charging towards you.” Mason feigns a shudder of fear. Then he bends down slightly and, wiggling his fingers at Hannibal’s feet, cackles. “Those little piggies are going to go _eeeeeeeee!_ ” He straightens again, abruptly. “All the way home.”

Hannibal takes in Mason’s pantomiming with an expression of mild, slightly vacant amusement. Like indulging a small child’s spontaneous desire to put on a puppet show when there are more important, adult things to do – attentive enough to know when to clap, but mentally returning phone calls, constructing to-do lists, or balancing budgets at the same time.

“Then there were the Ossabaw Island and Jiaxing Black pigs, to really fix in that aggression. Such interesting natural steroid production levels.”

Hannibal sounds quite interested. “Must have taken a long time to get things just right.”

“Seven years. There _were_ a few hiccups. For example, I tried to introduce  _B. babyrussa_ , the Indonesian Hog-Deer.” Mason shakes his head, affecting sadness. “Poor choice. Very slow breeder. Only two teats. Much too expensive to keep.” He looks over at Carlo. “We had to kill them all. Right, Carlo?”

Carlo nods, though his scowl suggests he’s unhappy about Hannibal’s continued ability to hold conversation.

“No time lost though, thankfully. Plenty of other litters. It was an experimental line. You, similarly, were an experiment. And you, too, have proven to be more trouble you’re worth.” Mason stops his dramatic pacing and arm-waving. “Thankfully, we can just kill you too.”

 

Will somehow reaches the top rung and the body slides off his shoulder and lands draped over the top of the fence. He pants and wipes sweat off one palm then the other. His arm feels like it’s being torn off at the site of his old stab wound. Grabbing the pipe tightly, he uses his foot to pitch the body over into the pen, hoping it will be enough to get the pigs’ attention.

He jumps down and makes his way back to the side door.

 

“Don’t bleed him out!” Mason barks at Carlo. “Just a little nick! Just enough to give the pigs a taste!” His last words come out like a whine.

“Padrone,” Carlo complains. “He killed Matteo.” He raises the knife again.

“Alright!” Mason steps in between them. “You’ll get Matteo’s pay as well. And the good dottoroni’s  _cojones_ , if you want. For comf–”

The sudden thunder of sixty-four hooves in a unidirectional surge steals their attention. Carlo goes to investigate. Will slips into the barn unnoticed and sees Abigail sneak in on the other side. She grins at him.

Mason peers into the darkness beyond the maze, waiting for an explanation for the pigs’ retreat. “Carlo?” he calls.

The steps up to the scaffolding are steep. Will visualizes it for a moment, hidden in the shadows, then sprints up to the platform taking the stairs two at a time. He is quiet enough that Mason doesn’t hear him until Will has him locked around the shoulders from behind, Abigail’s hunting knife at his throat.

“Car–!”

Will lets the tip of the knife dig into Mason’s neck and draws blood immediately; he doesn’t need Mason thinking for a _second_ that he won’t kill him this time. He turns them to face the place where he expects Carlo to reappear, then looks over his shoulder at Abigail.

She scoots over to Hannibal and quickly undoes the straps on the straitjacket. Will is glad she’s the one who landed that job. He’s sure his hands would have trembled too much to do it quickly.

Mason is chuckling quietly and the sound is slightly hysterical. “I thought you two were having a lover’s quarrel. Good thing the pigs are hungry.”

Abigail locks eyes with Will, then flicks her gaze to the hand-held controller just behind his left shoulder. She’s undone the last strap on the straitjacket, but Hannibal is still suspended by the hook and belt. _Good girl_. Will nods at her. She pulls Will’s gun from its holster again and retreats to the stairs she came up. He spares a glance at Hannibal, pretending to be strapped and helpless still, before turning his attention back to the darkness.

Still giggling, Mason says, “I can mount your skull on the other side of Fleet Shadow. Oh, I do like symmetry!”

Carlo reappears and shouts, “Padrone!” quickly drawing his gun.

Abigail shoots, and gets Carlo in the hip or thigh, she can’t quite see. It’s enough to topple him. Will gives Mason a quick, forceful shove in her direction and he slides almost all the way across the platform. Fleet Shadow’s skull rolls to the edge and nearly tumbles into the maze. Will grabs the controller and punches the release button.

Carlo drags himself up by the railing and aims. Will dives out of the way before running and tackling him. The man howls in pain as his injured leg comes down hard on the metal grating. Will is winded but drives Abigail’s knife into Carlo’s right wrist, and the man reflexively lets go of his gun with a yell. Will kicks it over the edge of the grating into the maze before giving into his need for oxygen. He pulls the knife out and sits back on his heels, gasping. The Sardinian groans and tries to roll onto his back. Lungs burning, Will forces his weak muscles to grip the knife tighter as he bends over to bisect the backs of both Carlo’s ankles at the tendon.

 

“Stay right there, Mason,” Abigail says, as Mason shakes his head to clear it and starts to sit up. “The floor suits you.”

Mason turns to look at her, bemused. “Hello! Who are you?”

She trains Will’s gun on him.

Mason chuckles idiotically and gets to his knees, holding his hands over his head in mock surrender.

Abigail cocks the gun.

“Whoooa- ha- haa.” An insane laugh escapes him. “I wasn’t expecting two guests! You’re more than welcome to stay and play with the pigs. I just have to take care of a little business.” He stands and turns, only to drop to his knees and then forwards onto the floor again when he catches a heavy metal hook in the chin.

Hannibal pulls the cable and hook back towards him, then sits and finishes freeing his left side from the straitjacket. His shirt is covered in blood. As usual, Hannibal seems to sense Abigail’s eyes on him and looks up to give her a small smile. “It’s not mine,” he assures her.

Abigail sits on Mason’s back and pats down his pockets and sleeves until she finds his knife.

Having caught his breath during this exchange, Will drags Carlo off the catwalk and back onto the platform.

“Achilles on your mind?” Hannibal asks when Will deposits Carlo beside him.

Will scowls and doesn’t look at him.

Together, they roll over a very nearly unconscious Carlo and fit him into the straitjacket. Hannibal attaches the hook to it.

Mason starts to come to at the sound of the winch motor whirring. Abigail shifts and digs her knees into his back.

“You know, the pigs wouldn’t have touched Hannibal,” she says conversationally as they watch Carlo being dragged upwards, limp and groaning. “He was never scared. Not like you are.”

Mason whimpers.

Abigail flips him over and kneels on his chest instead. She flicks open Mason’s knife with one hand and admires it with exaggerated interest, still pointing Will’s gun at him. “Is this the one Papa used on those show pigs?” She sticks it just a ¼ inch into the pudge of his belly.

Mason yelps.

Abigail rolls her eyes. “I guess Papa didn’t know what a coddled little thing you are.”

Will comes and crouches beside her. She hands him the knife.

Mason looks between the two of them, twice as terrified.

“I think we can get you a better seat,” Will says. They drag him to the edge of the platform, so he is kneeling with a perfect view of the mirror.

Carlo raises his head slightly when the winch begins to move along the track towards the center of the maze. He is disoriented for a moment, then, at the sight of the approaching hole in the scaffolding, he begins struggling violently against his restraints. He screams, and his screams get louder when the pigs – finished with their  _al fresco_  appetizer – come into view beneath his feet. “No! No! No!” he yells, fully conscious now. He is lowered down into the mass of savage swine anyway.

His feet, already partially severed, are the first to go. Will sees Abigail wince out of the corner of his eye. Flesh and muscle tears, bones are separated at the joint, ligaments snap, and everything is ground down between crushing molars. Each individual sound is a unique horror that reaches their ears with inescapable clarity. Worse, though, is the knowledge that the screeching and shrieking below is coming from a live human being, fully aware, nervous system intact.

Will makes himself look at the mirror. Carlo’s face is contorted and red, and his eyes are bugging out of his skull. He begins choking on his own screams. The pigs are gnawing their way up Carlo’s legs, tearing bloody ribbons from his shin bones with their elongated canines. It will take ages for this to be over.

“Jesus, Hannibal, can’t you just drop him?!”

“It doesn’t go any lower. Mason designed it that way.”

Mason, who looks pasty, but whose eyes are on the mirror and gleaming, his lips parted and wet. Abigail shudders. Carlo continues to die an excruciating death. His screams are deafening.

“Pull him back up!” Will shouts, and, to his surprise, Hannibal does. He gets to his feet and, when Carlo is close enough, reaches out, pulls the man towards him, and slits his throat deep with Mason’s knife.

By the time Hannibal has Carlo repositioned, the man has bled out over the backs of his predators. Eventually, the tugging of teeth and tusks will tear him right off the hook.

 

“Did you enjoy that preview, Mason? Are you excited to see first-hand what you’ve created?”

Mason just resumes his giggling and says, “You can’t kill me.”

Will pins down Mason’s right wrist and without any warning, removes his little finger at the knuckle.

Mason howls.

“Don’t be a baby,” Abigail scolds.

Will spears the finger and holds it up to Mason’s face. “Can you still see the pigs, Mason?”

Mason starts to blubber pathetically.

“We’re just going to give them a little taste,” says Will, and he flicks Mason’s forfeited digit into the pen.

They see it disappear into the mass of bodies converging on the added treat.

Abruptly, Abigail holsters Will’s gun, picks up the skull that is lying just within arm’s reach, and knocks Mason out with it.

Hannibal joins them at the edge of the platform, crouches, and snaps his finger in Mason’s ear. There is no response. He checks his pulse and then stands again, swaying slightly. “Is the other one dead?” he asks.

“Yes.” Will answers shortly. “Took him out first.”

“Well,” Hannibal says around a heavy breath. “Shall we go home then?”

 

They are down the steps and halfway across the barn floor when they hear the loud bang of a door being slammed on the other side of the scaffolding. Abigail takes off running towards it without hesitation.

“Abigail!” Will shouts.

She raises the arm holding the gun above her head in reassurance without looking back, and is out of sight before he can do anything. “I’ll meet you at the car,” she calls back as an afterthought. “I’ve got this.”

Will and Hannibal start towards the door again, walking and limping respectively, until Hannibal slows and stops. Will tugs his arm, unsympathetic. Hannibal can be tired in the car; Will has no patience for it now.

But he feels Hannibal yank his arm back with unexpected strength, and his mouth is suddenly crushed against Hannibal’s. He bites Hannibal’s bottom lip hard and shoves him away with a snarl. Hannibal falls, but quickly brings Will down as well. Will is furious with himself when he feels his knees being kicked out from under him. He lands roughly, but manages to crawl over to Hannibal before the man can get to his feet and brings an elbow down sharply into his stomach. Winded, Hannibal curls onto his side. Will grabs him by the shoulder and flips him onto his back again, ignoring Hannibal’s gasps and straddling him. It’s really not a fair fight at the moment, but Will doesn’t care. The odds are never  _not_  in Hannibal’s favour. He may never have the chance to be the aggressor again. He gets in two punches. Hannibal’s own teeth slice his lip open.

Hannibal bucks him off and makes a dive for Will’s throat. His lip is bleeding, his breathing heavy, but he still looks incredibly dangerous. Will rolls out of the way of his hands, but catches a foot in the side of the head instead. Then Hannibal is dragging him up by the front of his shirt and he’s thrown backwards. The backs of his legs catch on something and he lands with a metallic clang on what must be one of the cages the pigs arrived in.

Will finds his feet again and winces in pain, having landed on his already heavily abused shoulder. Hannibal is stalking towards him, but his limp slows him down and he looks unwilling to keep up the fight. Will straightens and drops his arms to his side.

 _Truce_.

Hannibal walks right up to him and grabs the back of Will’s head. Will kisses back this time. Before long, he is clawing at Hannibal’s shoulders and Hannibal’s arms are wrapped so tight about his ribcage he can hardly breathe. They stand that way, clinging to each other’s lips and Will feels like the world will simply blink out of existence if either loosens their hold.

His mouth is dry and his throat feels raw when one of them – he’s not sure who – breaks away immeasurably. Their foreheads are pressed together, their lips hardly separated. His hands migrate to the back of Hannibal’s head and neck and he presses their mouths together again. They quickly reach the height of their desperation again, and Hannibal removes his hands to unbuckle Will’s belt. Will reciprocates.

There is a moment when it seems neither of them knows what’s going to happen next. Will, in a moment of blind fear, flips Hannibal around and pins him against the cage with his hips. His mouth is still dry, but he manages to work some spit onto two fingers while unceremoniously dragging Hannibal’s pants down over his hips. Hannibal reaches behind him and manages to get Will’s button undone, and then lets out a shocked gasp as Will’s fingers enter him without warning.

This isn’t meant to be comfortable, but Will feels a pang of guilt when Hannibal drops forward on his elbows, back and shoulders visibly tensed in pain under the bloodstained shirt. He waits a while before pulling his fingers out, and instead massages him from the inside and rubs his back until the muscles start to loosen. He presses the pad of his thumb around the outside of Hannibal’s hole, occasionally dragging it along his perineum.

Hannibal’s breath is already ragged, and when soft groans begin to punctuate it, Will feels his own source of adrenaline shift slowly from fury to arousal. With the hand not working Hannibal’s asshole, he reaches down to feel Hannibal erect as well.  _Good_ , he thinks for some reason. His thoughts are a mess. He has no idea why or how he is engaging Hannibal in this way. He bends over Hannibal and forces him to turn his head. They assault each other’s mouths.

There is so much energy flooding through Will’s system, kissing Hannibal feels like punching him. He wants to know what fucking him will feel like. As soon as he has the thought he frees and starts to fist himself. Dissatisfied with his last attempt at lubrication, Will spits directly over Hannibal’s hole, slicking it up with his fingers. He spits twice more without even bending down, and doesn’t know if he does it so this will be less painful, or because in this situation, it feels like active disrespect. They are filthy and exposed and each humiliated in his own way, but the air between and around them conducts such a strong current, lightning might as well have just struck.

Will forces Hannibal’s hand down to stroke himself. It is trembling rather violently, but Will ignores this and curls his own hand around Hannibal’s, making him stroke faster. Again, he has no idea why. Why he gives a remote fuck about whether or not Hannibal gets anything out of this. Furious with himself as much as Hannibal, he straightens, spits on his hole again, and finally pushes in.

He’d been so caught up in the survivalism-fueled action of the past hour he hadn’t considered for a moment how good this would feel. He wants to press against Hannibal so hard and inside him so deeply that he will just disappear, safe beneath Hannibal’s skin.

He hears Hannibal mumble something, face buried in the crook of his arm.

“What?”

“Keep going.”

He does, and when his hips are flush against Hannibal’s backside, he only stills for a moment before beginning a steady, desperate rhythm in and out of him. When he pushes in from a certain angle, Hannibal practically jumps out of his skin. His moan is obviously uncensored. Will pulls back; he isn’t done with Hannibal yet. He still wants to tackle him, strangle him, slam his head against something and watch it bleed. He still wants that even though the heat of his anger has settled low in his stomach and transformed inarguably into pleasure. He wants to hate and love this man, and show him both in equal measure.

“Keep touching yourself,” he demands roughly, folding himself over Hannibal’s back and grabbing his shoulders from underneath to pull him firmly against him. Will wants to bite the neck this exposes, but thinks if he draws blood, he might be tempted to kill Hannibal right here and now, still buried inside him.

He fucks Hannibal like that until their shirts are soaked through and their bare skin around ass and thighs is slippery with sweat. Until he can’t help the groans that overlap with Hannibal’s, and he feels Hannibal’s arms and legs shaking.

Hannibal’s hand slows on his dick; he’s exhausted. Will grabs his forearm and growls, “Don’t you dare,” and works Hannibal’s arm to keep pace with their hips. “You can stop when you come.”

Hannibal is breathing so hard it sounds painful and Will realizes he is gasping as well. He shoves in harder, faster, spurred on by his own waning energy, and Hannibal gives three loud huffs through his mouth and comes.

Will moves his hands from Hannibal’s shoulders down his back. Hannibal jerks a couple times beneath him. Then Will grabs Hannibal’s hips and mercilessly thrusts in at the angle that elicited such a full-body reaction from Hannibal before.

He thinks for a moment that Hannibal has passed out. From the attack, from being tied up in the trunk of a car for hours, strung up for many more, and almost eaten alive. From the consecutive surges of adrenaline from being rescued at the last possible second by a man who gave every appearance of loathing him, but kissed him and fucked him anyway. And now from orgasm and this cruel, calculated overstimulation.

But he hears the breathy moan of a man trying to sound less in pain than he is and Will leans over him again before he can help it. He wants to stroke Hannibal’s hair, but desperately needs him to understand first.

“See how it feels?” he grits out.

Hannibal lies there trying to catch his breath, but turns his head slightly and gazes at Will with glassy eyes.

“How it feels to give  _everything_.” Will thrusts in again at the same angle. Hannibal groans low in his throat. Will’s voice is wrecked when he drops his head down to Hannibal’s shoulder and says, “To be utterly spent, and still have someone demand more of you?” His voice catches. “As though it’s his  _right_?”

He feels Hannibal’s breath in his ear and, after a minute, hears him whisper, sounding shattered, “Show me.”

Will turns his head to meet Hannibal’s eyes. They are wet, with strands of messed up, dirty hair falling into them. Hannibal’s voice trembles around open-mouthed breaths, but he repeats, “Show me.”

Will doesn’t. He feels heartsick and fragile, and pulls out of Hannibal, shaking his head. He tucks himself – not at all hard anymore – back into his pants and does the same for Hannibal.

Hannibal straightens slowly. Any muscle that isn’t tense is shaking, and it takes a minute for his limbs to steady enough for him to walk. Will holds him firmly around the waist and they make their way, wordlessly, back to the car.

Abigail is leaning against it, covered in what Will hopes is dirt. She is apparently uninjured, and looks quite pleased with herself. She opens the door to the back seat where she’s piled their coats for Hannibal to lie on.

Hannibal smoothes his hair back – a weak grasp at dignity – before crawling in and closing his eyes. He presses his face into the rough fabrics smelling comfortingly of Will and Abigail.

Abigail comes up with a rather clever way of looping and tying the seatbelts to buckle him in. Hannibal doesn’t protest but smiles at her when she takes them all apart again, saying he’ll probably be worse off that way if they get in an accident.

She gets into the passenger seat and turns, leaning her cheek against the headrest to appraise him. He looks tired and in pain, but not altogether bad for having nearly died. As Will starts the car and they begin the long drive home, Abigail reaches her hand over the center console and holds on to one of Hannibal’s. The look he gives her is the same one he wore the night of their family reunion, when she and Will looked at him and he looked back, and none of them said a word.

 

They are halfway back to Baltimore. Hannibal is asleep, Abigail is looking out her window, and Will is trying to keep a firm grip on the steering wheel. Abigail turns to him, worried, when she hears his breathing turn shallow and ragged. He is pale – very pale – and his hands are shaking like he’s in the second stage of hypothermia. She’s ready to grab the wheel, but he has the sense to pull over before he really starts to hyperventilate.

Gripping the wheel white-knuckled and leaning his forehead against the back of his hand, he continues to drag in too much oxygen with uncontrolled and painful breaths.

Abigail kneels and reaches past him to open the driver’s side door. Will swings his legs out of the car and plants his feet on the concrete, allowing the cool air to reset the part of his brain that, every so often, decides breathing normally is an impossible task.

Abigail only really guides his head down between his knees because she wants to. And she only perches behind him, rubbing his back because she wants to.

As his head clears and his lungs restore some equilibrium, he feels her comforting hands, and thinks how sometimes she’s so innocently affectionate with him, he wants to tear his hair out at the raw ache it conjures in his chest. He reaches a hand over his shoulder and finds one of hers, squeezing it gently. He wipes cold sweat from his face with the back of his other hand.

“Okay,” he says, starting to pull his legs back in.

She laughs incredulously. “Oh my god. Don’t be stupid.” It still feels affectionate when she shoves him out of the car, crawls into the driver’s seat, and closes the door pointedly.

He mutters, _bossy_ , but sheepishly accepts his demotion and gets back in on the passenger’s side.

As Abigail pulls back onto the highway, there is a loud thump, and Will looks back at the trunk, alarmed. “Uh… Abigail?”

She smiles, and the self-congratulatory look returns. “I invited someone for dinner. Forcefully.”

He stares at her.

“I thought it would be nice to have some fun with Mason.”

Maybe he’s simply too tired to be, but Will doesn’t seem the least bit concerned. “You’re out of control, kid,” he says with a quiet chuckle. He leans his head against the window, and is asleep not five minutes later.

Abigail looks over at him briefly. Then briefly at Hannibal in the rear-view mirror. Looking at the road straight ahead, she says into the dark and quiet car, “I love you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [My twitter](https://twitter.com/ES_Therru)   
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	9. A Murder Family Picnic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some hella cold badassery from the Murder Family. Wear a coat.
> 
> Trigger Warnings: knives, scary-ass pigs, blood (like a fuck-ton of it)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Assuming you read the last chapter, I just want to state explicitly that while we make all sorts of allowances for Hannigram, having unprotected anal sex is a very, very bad idea in real life. Will is lucky that Hannibal doesn’t have any STIs and that somehow things were tidy back there. Still, if Will doesn’t at least get a urinary tract infection, I will be quite surprised.  
> Okay, I won’t give Will a UTI. He’s got enough trouble coming his way.  
> But seriously, wrap your zipper rippers. It’s just polite.  
> That’s all. I didn’t want to end the last chapter on a lecture-y note. Just a Lecter-y one.

Will helps Hannibal upstairs and into the bath. Abigail leaves them to find somewhere to put Mason before he wakes up.

“I can do it myself, Will.” Hannibal says.

“I don’t give a shit, Hannibal.” Will hesitates at the side of the tub. “Are you hurt?”

“Injured, perhaps.”

Will sighs and turns to go, not in the mood for banter.

Hannibal grabs his hand and pulls him back. “What I mean is I was only punished corporeally, and maybe not enough. I wanted it. I thought there would be some atonement in it.”

Will draws his eyebrows together and looks down at the hand wrapped around his own. “I don’t know what you mean,” he whispers.

“You could have left me for dead. You didn’t. So no, I’m not hurt. Not in any way that matters.”

“Night’s still young.” But Will feels tears are in danger of filling his eyes. He bends down and kisses Hannibal softly on the mouth. He smoothes his hair back with the same sudden tenderness, and strokes his cheek with the back of his forefinger. “I’ll leave you something to eat and some ibuprofen.” He kisses him again. “See you in the morning.”

Will starts to move away, and Hannibal grabs his hand again, in case he can’t find his voice in time to stop him. His voice is gravelly when he says, “Stay with me tonight.”

Will can’t help but think how often Hannibal poses orders as questions, and questions as orders. Regardless of the syntax, “Stay with me tonight” was a question.

“Do you want me to?”

“I’m fairly confident I need you to.”

Will agrees, wordlessly, and takes an unnecessarily hot shower while Hannibal finishes washing himself.  Neither of them have the energy or desire for modesty. Will helps himself to one of Hannibal’s luxurious sets of night clothes.

 

Abigail is in the kitchen, melting some cheese on toast under the broiler. It’s the simplest thing, but it looks and smells like the only thing Will could possibly want to eat at the moment.

“It’s like you read my mind,” he says, sliding onto one of the bar stools.

She shovels the toast onto three separate plates and slides one over to Will with a smile. She rustles around in one of the drawers and comes up with a very normal-looking bottle of generic brand ibuprofen. “I half expected to find these in a hand-labelled glass vial.”

Will smiles down at his plate, lost and marveling at her seemingly irrepressible smart talk.

“Keep an eye on the kettle?” She heads towards the stairs with a plate, the bottle, and (Will doesn’t know why he finds it funny, but he does) a glass of milk. “I hope Hannibal is decent,” she throws over her shoulder, and Will tries not to throw the remainder of his toast at the back of her head.

She isn’t gone long. When she returns, she sits next to Will with her own plate.

“Okay?” He asks.

She nods, chewing thoughtfully, but apparently not distressed.

“What did you do with Mason?”

“Cellar,” she says around a mouthful. Swallowing, she adds, “He’s very… Not conscious.”

She smiles at him.  He picks up one of her hands and inspects it. It is steady. Steadier than his. “You’re really okay.”

“You can ask me again tomorrow if you want. He’s not dead yet.” She hops to her feet as the water in the kettle begins to boil, and sets about making two cups of tea. “I’m pretty sure I’m not gonna feel bad about killing him though.”

“He _is_ a pig,” Will agrees.

“Deserves to be somebody’s bacon.”

 

When Will returns to the bedroom, he’s not sure whether or not Hannibal is awake. Not allowing himself to think about it too much before doing so, he slides into the bed, curling himself around the man’s back and hugging him to his chest. Sleepily, Hannibal tangles up his leg between Will’s.

As Will drifts off, some part of his psyche that has been repressed for a while now thinks maybe he should be worried about Abigail’s cool response to cold-blooded killing. He isn’t though.  He’s proud of her.

 

Abigail balances the breakfast tray on one arm and knocks on the bedroom door loudly. “Cover up. I’m coming in,” she calls. There’s no response so she just hopes that whatever they got up to last night ended with them putting some clothes back on. It had. T-shirts and all. She puts the tray down on one of the bedside tables and takes a moment to drink in the most adorable sight she’s ever seen.

She’d been teasing Will about this since their reunion, obnoxiously asking the equivalent of “when are my two dads going to get together?” several times a week. She’d thought she was doing it because teasing Will is fun, and because somebody had to say it – and it certainly wasn’t going to be either of them. She’d thought it would be nice, and maybe they’d feel even more like a family. But she isn’t prepared for the bubble of alien happiness that rises in her stomach, seeing them lying there together.

Will’s arm is slung over Hannibal’s waist and his face is buried in his neck, and Hannibal has their lower limbs all tangled up, his feet wrapped around one of Will’s. One or both of them had kicked off the blankets in their sleep. It looks like the most comfortable position in the world. They look like they should always be this way. She’d never felt that when she accidentally walked in on her parents kissing, or caught them holding hands under the table. That hadn’t felt wrong, but this feels like something special. Something she’ll probably never understand.

She bites the inside of her cheek to temper her smile as she rounds the bed to Hannibal’s side with one of the cups of fresh coffee. She sits and wafts the scent towards him, counting on his heightened olfactory senses to wake him up gently.

“Good morning, Abigail. Is that for me?” He raises himself on one elbow and takes the mug from her. Will’s face lolls into the dip of the pillow left by Hannibal’s head.

“I wasn’t sure I had the proper training to use your espresso maker, or the dexterity to safely transport your nice glasses, so it’s just regular coffee, in a regular mug.”

Hannibal chuckles. “It’s lovely, Abigail. Thank you.”

She gives him a shy smile and looks over at Will. “Are you going to wake him up? It’s almost eleven.”

“Hm. It always seems tragic doing that. Like giving someone bad news.”

“He’s so tired all the time,” Abigail nods, “I think ‘you need to be awake for a while’ _is_ bad news for him.” She looks back at Hannibal and her shy smile becomes impish. She takes the mug out of his hands and sets it on the side table, then stands and collects his plate and glass from last night to take back to the kitchen. “That’s why I’m letting you do it.”

He doesn’t have to. Will stirs and untangles himself and sits up, rubbing his face roughly. He sees Hannibal sit up as well out of the corner of his eye. He also sees the coffee cup and breakfast tray. “I’m sensing this wasn’t you,” he says, pulling the tray onto the bed in between them. He doesn’t quite look at Hannibal.

“Abigail is an early riser.”

“I know. She makes me feel terrible sleeping in on weekends.”

“She might not be so keen to get up in the mornings when she has some more time-consuming responsibilities.”

“My responsibilities consume more than just time.”

“Yes. Well then we may be fated to wake up to breakfast in bed indefinitely.”

Will smiles a little, but still doesn’t look at Hannibal when he says, “What a hardship.” He picks up the second cup of coffee, already creamed and sugared, and sips. It feels like it physically clears his head, and he drinks it down gratefully.

Abigail returns and perches cross-legged at the end of the bed, careful not to upset their plates of scrambled eggs and bacon. Will notices she hasn’t put on a scarf this morning.

She lets them eat for a while in silence, plucking at the bunched up blankets, although of course there’s no trace of lint on them. Then she says, “I’m not saying last night wasn’t fun, but maybe we should start fine-tuning those plans of ours?”

“Probably,” Will agrees, smiling at her.

“You know… if you two are talking again.”

“Cheekiness,” is all Will says as he clears his plate. “Thank you. Did you already eat?”

“At least two hours ago. It’s practically lunch time.”

“Sorry,” he says, for no reason.

“We also need to deal with Mason.”

“Mason?” Hannibal interjects.

Abigail looks at Will and can’t help but grin. “Not talking then.”

“ _Sleeping_.”

“Okay.” Then to Hannibal, she says, “I may have tied Mason up in the trunk and brought him home.”

Hannibal narrows his eyes at her. “Can I safely assume you thought this through first?”

“No,” she answers, then remembers she’s not talking only to Will, and tries to dial back the sauciness. “I mean… I thought about it while I was tying him up, and while we were driving home. I have more than one idea about what we can do with him.”

“There are no words, Abigail….”

“Actually,” Will says, “I think Margot should be the one to decide what happens to Mason.”

He doesn’t mean it as a reprimand, but after a pause, Abigail’s face colours and she looks ashamed. “Of course. I didn’t think about that. Sorry.”

He shakes his head. “I didn’t think of it myself until just now.” Then, realizing who has the third and likely final say here, he says, “Hannibal?”

Hannibal is looking at them oddly. He’s obviously decided not to lecture Abigail on how disastrous her impetuous behaviour could have been. Not now anyway. “I agree. Although…” he muses, “it would be nice if she shared our sentiments.”

“I’ll go pick her up and bring her back here,” Will says. “Judy too, if she wants. Call her and let her know, please, Abigail? Since you’re so functional.”

Abigail stands with their breakfast tray and mugs and smiles at the two of them. “Why don’t I just go pick them up?”

“You know why.”

When Abigail leaves, pouting slightly, Will turns and finally makes eye contact with Hannibal.  There is a question in his eyes.

“I don’t know,” Will answers out loud.

“Know what, Will?”

“How this makes me _feel_.”

 

Much to Abigail’s disappointment, Will appears downstairs less than five minutes later, fully dressed and pulling on his jacket. She frowns at him, leaning against the kitchen doorframe with her arms folded. She looks so disgruntled, Will actually feels a little bad. Then he remembers that it’s Abigail. She’s not mad that she’s not allowed to drive in daylight; she’s mad because he and Hannibal aren’t upstairs cuddling or something.

“I didn’t mean we should deal with Mason _right this second_.” Abigail sighs and points to her coat hung up by the door. “Left pocket,” she says, resigned.

“Bye, Abigail,” Will says cheerfully.

“You guys are the worst ever,” she replies, and goes to wash the dishes.

 

Hannibal joins her in the study a little while later. She takes in the lack of any superfluous clothing or accessories – no waistcoat, no tie, no cufflinks, no suit jacket – and looks away, though she knows she’s already been caught staring.

“What’s on your mind, Abigail?”

She looks back at him carefully, trying to deduce if she’s in trouble. As usual, Hannibal’s face gives nothing away. He’s still standing.

“Sorry I didn’t ask you about Mason.”

“You recognize kidnapping Mason was reckless.”

“Yes.”

He smiles at her. “And I recognize I was in no position to be asked permission for anything.”

“I should have asked Will.”

“Yes.”

“Sorry,” she says again.

“I think we can move past apologies. I don’t believe you’re the type to repeat mistakes. And I admire your spirit.”

She smiles. “Okay,” she says softly. Then, “Are you okay? Your lip looks really painful.”

He nods. “I’ve had much worse.” After a moment he says, “Abigail,” and holds his hand out to her. She goes to him and takes it. He cups her chin gently with his other hand. “You saved my life,” he says, voice gentle as well. “Thank you.”

If he were Will, Abigail would have already launched herself into his arms, but he’s Hannibal, so Abigail waits til he gives the faintest of nods and starts to lift his arm before she hugs him.

“I thought you left without us,” she blurts out.

“I wouldn’t leave either of you behind,” he assures her.

She uses his words as an opening. Will has developed some kind of resistance to her hint-dropping, so she changes her tactics.

“A while ago I told Will he could call me his daughter,” she says.

“I’m sure you made him very happy by saying so.”

She takes the chair on the opposite side of his desk and props her elbows up, chin in her hands. She gives him her best demure smile. “Do you want me to be your daughter too?”

Hannibal sits down in his own chair. He’s wearing a knowing smile, but leans forward and folds his hands on the desk, indulging her. “I already consider you as such but I’d be happy to have your blessing,” he says, amused.

Abigail drops the act and instead just tries not to openly sulk. It doesn’t work very well. “People who share a daughter are usually together,” she mutters, “or have been together at some point.”

“What is it exactly that you would like, Abigail?”

She just catches herself before she flops back and slouches in frustration. She can’t help but glare a little though. “Nothing,” she sniffs, and goes back to her seat by the window.

 

A couple of hours later, Will returns with Margot and Judy, and they all congregate in the cellar.

“I’m not opposed to crowd-sourcing ideas,” Margot tells them, as she paces slowly around the bound and seated Mason.

Hannibal’s mouth twitches up slightly. “Abigail was full of them this morning.”

Abigail looks half embarrassed, half pleased with herself. “It was pretty easy to think of ways to punish someone so disgusting.”

“Hm. Tell me your worst one.” She looks down at her brother and her lip curls. “Pay attention, Mason, dear.”

“Well, feeding him to his pigs was the obvious first choice.”

“What if I wanted to punish him but keep him alive? At least for a little while?” She looks at Judy. Judy smiles at her.

Abigail says to Hannibal, “You can hypnotize people, right?” She turns back to Margot. “We could make him feed his own face to them instead.”

“Very creative, Abigail,” Hannibal says, amused again. “However, in this case, I think the use of psychoactive drugs might yield better results than hypnosis.”

Abigail rolls her eyes, his tone making her bold. “Whatever.”

Margot stops pacing and stands in front of Mason with a smirk. Her eyes flick over to Will. “I like the way your girl thinks.” She looks down. “How does that sound, Mason, dear?”

Mason makes a couple sniveling sounds, and faints.

 

“Our plans,” Will says, when he and Hannibal find themselves alone in the kitchen for a few minutes. “We can’t wait any longer. Jack’s ready to hang us both.”

“Hm. Is that something Jack is able to do?”

“He’s good at jacking up the law and getting underneath it, as evidenced by this not-so-undercover undercover operation.”

Hannibal smiles.

“Anyway, it’s more his attitude I’m worried about. He’s in kill mode. And he’s hiding something.”

“What do you think he’s hiding?”

“He’s up to something with Miriam Lass. I can’t get in to see her. Hard not to feel paranoid right now.”

“Shall we say end of the month then? You can give Jack his invitation on Monday.”

Will nods. “It’ll give him something to think about at least.”

Judy enters the kitchen then. “Dr. Lecter.” She nods coolly in his direction but doesn’t make eye contact. “Will, can I talk to you for a minute?”

Will goes to follow her into the dining room, but Hannibal pointedly walks out instead.

Judy produces a dossier and explains. “These documents appoint Margot as administrator of the Verger estate, and chief executive officer of Verger Meatpacking Industries – with a lot of fine print about what that entails. Everything will remain in Mason’s name for now, but there’s also a will.” She places each of the documents on the countertop side by side. “It took me forever to draw that up, because Mason apparently thinks he’s never going to die.”

“He doesn’t have a will?”

“Nope. Molson Verger already ensured Margot gets nothing if he does die. Probably all he cares about.” She gives him a wry smile and shrugs. “Rich people. Anyway, if you’re willing, I’d like for you to be the witness...?”

Will catches himself cocking his head to one side to look at her in puzzlement. Their _folie à trois_ manifesting in physical habits now.

“I know this whole thing is a little shady, since Mason is probably not going to be aware or consenting when he signs. But I’d prefer not to commit outright fraud. I’ll sleep easier if we do everything else by the book.”

“Okay.” Will goes through the papers and Judy waits patiently. “You did all of this?” he asks.

“I used to be a lawyer.”

“Used to?”

“I got stabbed. I heard you can relate.”

He takes the pen she holds out and signs everywhere she’s marked with a little red tab. “Didn’t think that was part of the job.”

“Neither did I. Being a civil notary has come in pretty handy here though.” She smiles as she packs the documents back up.

“How’s Margot?” Will asks.

“Depressed.”

Will just nods.

“She’ll be okay.”

“It’s good she has you.”

“I’m sorry we dragged you into this. Margot wouldn’t have done it if I hadn’t encouraged her.”

“I don’t think it’s either of your faults.”

“No?”

“Your culpability is negligible next to the shit Mason and Dr. Lecter pulled. I just want Margot to be okay.”

“Are you okay?”

He looks at her and chuckles to mask his discomfort. “I slept with your girlfriend, so I feel pretty weird about that. Managing, though. You?”

She laughs as well. “Same. Never a dull moment.”

“Truer words….”

 

Will can see Mason taking in the collection of scarred monsters surrounding him as he’s loaded back into the trunk of Will’s car. His punishment will help him fit in.

“Go ahead,” Will says to Abigail, handing her the keys. “We’ll follow. Hannibal and I need to talk.” He purposely doesn’t look at her when he says this. He doesn’t want to be annoyed with her right now, and his remounted anxiety will almost certainly make him snap at her.

“I can drive if you want,” Will says to Hannibal when the others have driven away in his car.

Predictably, Hannibal shakes his head and gets in on the driver’s side.

“How long were you hanging there?” Will asks once they’re on the road.

“I’d say my time was evenly divided between the trunk and the barn. It wasn’t entirely uncomfortable. I even managed to sleep a little.”

“We’ve both been in straitjackets now,” Will says humorlessly.

“Yes. I can think of more interesting ways to spend a day.”

After a while, Will says, “I don’t want to play games – I need to know if you’re hurt, or injured or whatever. From them or… from me.”

“A little. I’ll be fine. I have a good doctor.”

“I’m sorry,” Will says, but doesn’t elaborate. Hannibal has already dismissed his request.

“I know,” Hannibal says. “Don’t be. You saved my life, and there are very few –”

“Shut up, Hannibal.” Will stops listening.

 

They are back at Muskrat Farm. Hannibal administers a dry powder mixture of psychedelic compounds and Mason begins to giggle maniacally almost immediately after inhaling.

Hannibal yields the floor, and Margot approaches, with some of her old haughtiness restored in her gait. “Hello, Mason.”

Mason throws his arms wide and says, “Well if it isn’t everybody’s favourite muff-diver! Is it time to talk about what Margot wants?”

Margot smiles coldly. “What Margot wants, Mason dear, is to take care of you… and our estate.”

“Our estate…” Mason muses.

“Yes. Judy has some papers for you to sign. Doesn’t that sound fun?”

“It does!” Mason agrees. “Although,” he adds, bringing a hand down heavily on her shoulder and wagging his finger at no one, “Not fun like the kind I had planned for Dr. Lecter and the sperm donor.”

Margot is as tall as her brother in her high-heeled boots, but she flinches nonetheless when he touches her.

“Why don’t you get comfortable, Mason?” Hannibal indicates the edge of the roofing, and Mason sits, swinging his legs happily.

Mason signs the papers, delighted every time he sees his own name in writing. Afterwards, he announces that he’s hungry, and Hannibal suggests he eat his nose. They all gather around like they’re at some twisted family picnic and watch Mason carve his own face, gleefully tossing the blood-slicked strips of fresh meat into the pit, and occasionally dropping them into his own mouth. Mason is very agreeable throughout the proceedings.

When his face is little more than white teeth in a weeping bed of red pulp, Hannibal addresses Margot. “Murder or mercy?”

“Murder _is_ mercy.” Margot folds her arms and looks down at Mason contemptuously.

Mason burps and says, “I’m full of myself!”

“And mercy is manufactured,” she continues, looking directly at Hannibal.

Hannibal gives a small nod and goes to Mason; there is a glint in his eyes that can’t be mistaken for anything other than pleasure. He pulls Mason off the roof and onto the platform, with Mason still chuckling “…full of myself….” He snaps Mason’s neck, lays him down, then checks to make sure he still has a pulse. He stands elegantly after wiping his bloody hands on Mason’s jacket sleeves. It’s like watching a three-move chess victory.

 

“You kept your promise,” Margot says at his side.

Will is looking down at Mason with a strange feeling in his gut. Mason’s suit is a bloody saturation gradient – a few specks on the obnoxiously white pants; more, closer to his middle; then great palm-sized blotches overlapping across his shirtfront. The shoulders of his suit jacket are completely soaked through with blood. Mason’s eyes blink and roll around in his mangled face, and his teeth click as he opens and closes his mouth repeatedly. It’s horrific. Will thinks someone with an “empathy disorder” should feel _something_ about this. But all he feels is a sense that for Mason, there’s worse yet to come.

“You guys should get out of here before I call anyone,” she says when Will is silent.

Will nods and gives her a brief smile. Judy hands him the dossier and says she’ll pick it up from him tomorrow. She shakes his hand. It’s nice – not presumptive, not overly formal. Friendly.

He feels a hand on his shoulder. Hannibal is steering him out of the barn.

Abigail gives back the keys to his car. “See you tomorrow?”

“Yeah. Or Sunday.” He puts an arm around her shoulder. “I have to grab Jack’s invitation from Hannibal’s office at some point.” When they reach their cars, Will asks, “Um. Did you want to come back to Wolf Trap?”

Abigail lets him off the hook with a smile and a quick shake of her head.

He gives her a kiss and a squeeze and gets into his car feeling shamefully relieved.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you, as always, to my murderwife and beta reader, [Kate](http://archiveofourown.org/users/asprigofzest). The line "When are my two dads going to get together?" definitely came out of her mouth when doing an Abigail impression, and I had to put it in the story somewhere because it's hilarious and adorable, like everything Kate does <3 Check out some of her hilarity and adorableness on [tumblr](http://weesprigofzest.tumblr.com).
> 
> [My twitter](https://twitter.com/ES_Therru)   
>  [My tumblr](http://es-therru.tumblr.com)   
>  [Our Etsy store](https://www.etsy.com/ca/shop/TheseAreHerDesigns)


	10. Inhuman

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will finally gets to deal with his murder boner, but first he’s all like, “I really want to forgive you, you smug bastard, but you're being really fucking annoying, and also, don’t tell me what to do.”
> 
> Also there’s a new case.
> 
> Trigger warning for… disturbing imagery? Implied gore? It’s nowhere near what you’re in for in Part 2, though.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you thank you thank you to my murderwife, [Kate](http://archiveofourown.org/users/asprigofzest) ([@weesprigofzest](http://weesprigofzest.tumblr.com) on tumblr) for beta-ing and being lovely.

“This is your brilliant plan?” Jack thunders when he opens the envelope on Monday morning. “The one you’ve been using as an excuse to duck out of here whenever you want? Cancel classes? Drop cases?”

“ _Your_ cases. Or rather your pet serial killer project. Don’t pretend you give a shit about me cancelling classes.”

Jack is practically pulsating with anger.

“ _Jack_ ,” Will says forcefully, “I told you. Use live bait. Create a world where only you and the fish exist. You are the _only_ guest at this dinner.”

Jack still looks furious, and unconvinced.

“This will be over faster than if we wait for him to try and kill me.” Will lowers his voice and hopes the logic appeals to Jack when wrapped in the dulcet tones of a well-behaved lapdog. “He’s done with you, Jack. He’s ready to give you what you want, and after he confesses, he’ll have to kill you. I don’t think I can get you any closer than this.”

Jack grunts. “I’ll think about it.” He waves Will away saying, “And now that _your_ pet project is done, you can take another look at those goddam files, and the three more that have turned up since.”

Will doesn’t say anything about how it’s Jack’s obsession with the Ripper that’s led them here. About how it’s hardly _Will’s_ pet project. About how those files definitely hadn’t “turned up” – dug up more like. He doesn’t say anything so censored. “I’m not your fucking bloodhound, Jack,” is what he does say, and has no choice but to leave very quickly after that.

The aspirin doesn’t help when he bumps into someone coming out of the records room; Zee says impudently, “Hey there, stranger,” and Will wants to hit him just to relieve some of the tension in his head.

After his confrontation with Jack, work takes on the appearance of being uneventful for three whole days. Their steadily growing pile of illicit case files continues to yield no useable information, and no new (legitimate) cases come in. But Will is too familiar with calms before storms to be fooled. He is on high alert come Friday.

His second lecture is interrupted midway through. Jack doesn’t have to say more than, “Okay, class dism–” before the trainees jump up and bolt for the door. Will doesn’t blame them. Jack looks more lethal every time he gatecrashes their classes. A rumour had started and was quickly spread around the Academy, that Jack had kicked a student out of the program for trying to ask Will a question on his way out. It didn’t matter that none of the students could account for a missing friend. Even logic fled the room when Jack entered.

They ride with Zeller and Price to the primary crime scene. Will says almost immediately, “It didn’t happen here.”

Jack sighs as though it’s Will’s fault the killer decided to move the body.

The body _and_ the murder weapon, Will realizes as they get closer.

It’s almost as though Jack had held auditions. Whoever has the most upsetting kill gets to be profiled by Will Graham.

“What the hell…” Zee says, crouching to study the apparatus.

Jimmy circles the body and gives his initial report. “No blunt force trauma to the head, or anywhere.” He sounds surprised. “Hands tied, feet tied. The ropes appear to be suspending…” he crouches down as well, “…looks like iron weights. Significant bruising around the wrists and ankles, probably from the prolonged strain on the ropes….”

“Cause of death has to be… blood loss,” Zee says, perplexed.

“Or heart failure,” Jimmy counters. “Could’ve happened first. We’ll have to get him back to the lab before we can tell for sure.”

“I kinda hope that was the case. The hell is this thing?”

“It’s a Spanish Donkey,” Will says quietly.

Zee and Price turn to look at him in unison. When Will doesn’t offer anything else, Zee shrugs, annoyed, saying, “And what the hell is that?”

“Medieval.” Will removes his glasses and wipes his forehead with his sleeve, feeling sick.

“Alright, everybody clear the scene,” comes the familiar bark from Jack.

Will wants to tell them not to go. He doesn’t want to do this. But they’ve already left. He has to brace his hands on his thighs and stare at the asphalt for a full minute before he can make himself look again.

When he comes out of the reconstruction he has no better understanding of the killer, just a very vivid vision of himself torturing a man to death.

He nods to Jack, and the techs and photographer move in. Zeller and Price stand just outside the bustle deliberating over something. He makes it back to the SUV with enough time to vomit behind it and think up something to tell Jack when he inevitably corners Will.

He goes with, “Need the autopsy report.” When Jack is aggressively dissatisfied, he continues. “He’s a big guy, obviously, but I don’t think he’ll have any priors. Maybe look for incident reports at bars, clubs…. Big guys tend to attract trouble even if they’re not looking for it.” Will realizes most of what he’s saying is probably quite close to the truth. “He’ll have a workshop; most likely a private one, in his garage or basement. And he’ll either have home equipment or a gym membership. Or he’s just naturally jacked and the woodworking keeps him that way.” Will shrugs, ignoring the cold sweat on the back of his neck. “That’s all I can give you right now, Jack.”

Will is angry. Jack didn’t need him to “do his thing.” Someone just needed to go through the scene logically. Will isn’t even an old mug anymore. He’s the sleeve of Styrofoam cups that gets dug into whenever anyone’s too lazy to do the dishes. And he’s almost empty. _What then, Jack?_

“Motive?” Jack says.

Will feels the nausea return. “Not til we know something about the victim. Can I go?” He poses it as a question, but walks away without waiting for the answer. It’s the best he can do.

He rides back to Quantico with the photographer. Will doesn’t know his name.

“You look a little grey, man,” he says.

Will actively discourages the conversation. The photographer looks embarrassed, and cross, and they drive in silence.

 

Abigail is leaning her elbows on the kitchen counter, reading a book propped open in front of her while waiting for a pot of water to boil. Judy is revising something on her laptop, and Margot sits across the table from her, tearing through a book of number puzzles.

The scene is so normal and domestic, it doesn’t seem real.

Will vomits twice more in the shower, though it’s mostly spit and stomach acid. His stomach heaves again as he brushes his teeth, but nothing at all comes up.

“Hey,” says Abigail, looking up from the pot she’s stirring when he joins them in the kitchen. “Are you going to eat with us?”

Will nods, then, feeling his salivary glands working overtime again, swallows and says, “Actually, no. I need to go to Baltimore.”

“I’ll drive you.”

“No need.”

“You look awful.”

“Yeah. I quite often look that way,” he says, irritated even though he knows she’s just worried. He can feel Margot and Judy’s eyes on him. He leaves the room without saying anything else.

Abigail turns the stove off and moves the pot to the back burner before following. She stops in the doorway and says after him, “Will, please let me drive you.”

His voice is a little softer, but he doesn’t turn around or stop walking when he says, “Alright. Eat your dinner first. I’ll wait outside.”

 

A little while later, Abigail emerges onto the front porch, pulling on her coat and tugging her hair out from under the collar. She shoves a box of crackers at him as they walk to the car.

“Eat some. Or you’ll throw up again.”

Will doesn’t know how she makes half the leaps she does. She’s right too often for it to be guesswork. He eats a couple and it settles his stomach enough that he manages to sleep on the way to Baltimore.

When she shakes him awake an hour later, he’s surprised to find them parked outside Hannibal’s office rather than his house.

“I called ahead,” she explains. “He said he has a lot of paperwork.”

“Oh,” says Will. Then, “Sorry I snapped at you.”

Abigail smiles a relieved smile and shakes her head. “I snap at you all the time. Kinda had it coming. I’m gonna go nap at Hannibal’s. If you want I can drive you home later.” For once, she doesn’t make a quip about him spending the night with Hannibal.

 

Will feels a little less fragmented after the small dose of sleep, but not any less sick at heart.

Hannibal opens the door for him and appraises him quickly before going to the bar cabinet in the corner. He doesn’t say anything.

Will sits in his usual chair. Since they are apparently skipping _hellos_ , he doesn’t preface his words, just starts reciting to the empty space in front of him:

 _No one can be fully aware of another human being unless we love them. By that love, we see potential in our beloved. Through that love, we allow our beloved to see that potential._ _Expressing that love, our beloved's potential comes true._

“What is that?” Hannibal asks, joining him with two drinks – scotch for Will, a glass of rosé for himself.

“I was going to ask you. I heard it in a dream I had. I thought maybe you’d quoted it to me at some point.”

“I’m afraid I can’t claim credit. Is that the only reason you’re here tonight?” Hannibal’s expression is unreadable. Or perhaps Will just can’t focus enough to read it.

“Have you ever been tortured?” he asks.

“Yes.”

“Systematically?”

“No.”

“But you know what it feels like to suffer. The extreme pain a person can endure before losing consciousness.”

Hannibal tilts his head and narrows his eyes slightly. He doesn’t answer, and Will thinks it’s because he knows where this line of inquiry is headed.

“Everything else makes sense on some level. But I can’t reconcile this. How you can know what your victims are feeling, and think it’s anything other than cruel what you do to them before you let them die.”

Hannibal continues to sit across from Will, expressionless and silent. Will knows he hasn’t asked a question. He makes up for it quickly.

“Why can’t you keep things simple?  We decided from the beginning that killing bad people feels good.  Why do you have to complicate that?  Kill innocent people? Torture them?”

Hannibal leans forward, and instead of sounding cold and detached, he sounds annoyed. “You have all the information, Will. And yet you are pleased with my actions one day and angry about them the next. I’m beginning to find your inconsistency wearing.”

The accusation is enough to set Will’s blood rolling into a steady boil. “You wear a mask of consistency, as though that’s what matters. You fooled me into thinking I’m the one who needs to change.”

“Not change. Understand.”

“I’m _always_ trying to understand!” Will has to put down his glass to keep from throwing it. “I’ve made every excuse there is for you, but you never offer to explain yourself.”

“What explanation could I possibly give you that would counteract the facts of what I do?”

Will growls in frustration and grasps at his hair. “It shouldn’t matter if it counteracts it or not. You should explain anyway.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s not about the end-game anymore. You’re never going to be exonerated. I’m never going to un-know what I know about you. You’re looking at this the wrong way around. I haven’t given you up, so the fact that you begrudge me an explanation is insulting.”

“It’s difficult to offer an explanation when I can’t know how you will react, or even if you will listen. I’m not entirely without insecurities, Will.”

There is a long silence in which Will tries, and fails, to determine if Hannibal is lying.

“If you want some sort of final answer regarding whether or not I’m okay with everything, it won’t be the one you want. I _don’t_ have all the information. Maybe never will. If you want consistency, find someone else to run away with you.” Will’s voice comes out sounding wretched, as though he thinks Hannibal may actually do just that.

Hannibal’s voice is quiet and strangely soft when he says, “You’re so eager to hate me. Why?”

Will removes his glasses with a shaky hand and rubs his eyes. “You know why,” he says, just as quietly. “Because I _don’t_ hate you. And I should.”

“If the world knew what you knew, they would certainly say so.”

“Is the world wrong? Is justice and every other ideal I’ve worked to preserve just an empty concept?”

“Not entirely. The world is more lenient than I am, and simultaneously more corrupt. I don’t believe that is a coincidence. And I don’t believe there is any excuse for the pedestrian rudeness I witness every day.”

“ _I’m_ rude. On purpose. To _you_.”

“If you were to look at a hypothetical record of those people I’ve killed, you’d see I’ve killed very few people who attempt artistry in some form or another. It’s rudeness from the mundane that I find despicable. Taking advantage of the constraints etiquette places on others, and not adhering to it themselves. Just poison, and no antidote.”

“I’m not an artist,” Will says, sounding strained. “I’m not attempting to be one.”

“You’re not mundane either. You make your contributions, and suffer for it. Kahlo, Wilmot, Cézanne, Fauré, Handel... They were all reportedly quite rude.”

“You wouldn’t have killed them?”

“No. Certainly not.”

“Just because they created art you happen to like?”

“Don’t try to be mundane, Will,” Hannibal says sharply, “It’s distasteful and doesn’t suit you. I know you are aware there’s more to it than that.”

Will blushes and looks away, feeling acutely that the chastisement was deserved.

“I would not have killed them, because their poisons were local, but their antidotes are universal. I told you, Will. I have standards. I kill to make art, not deprive the world of it.”

Will nods, then feels heat rise in his neck as he realizes Hannibal has once again steered the conversation into a battle he’s already won. “We covered this, already,” Will grits out. “Some people deserve death. Fine. But how does anyone deserve the torture you inflict on them? The humiliation?”

“There are people who absolutely deserve it. There are men so evil I wouldn’t apologize for their agony even to you. Only one of Mischa’s killers had a quick and painless death. The others suffered greatly, and I enjoyed making them suffer.”

Will shakes his head. “That’s not what I mean.”

“The others? Making them suffer isn’t the primary objective.”

“The art is.”

“Yes.”

“What about humiliating them?”

“Also secondary.”

“So…?”

“I don’t care about them. I don’t see their pain and think I should stop, or see their pain and feel it myself. Their agony and shame isn’t arousing or cathartic for me. It’s just part of the process of creating.”

There is a long silence.

“This is why… I can’t feel just one thing about you.”

“What do you mean, Will?”

“I can’t tell you what I’ll be like towards you from one day to the next because every aspect of you is part artistry, part logic, part pseudo-logic, part self-interest… It’s overwhelming.” Will finally picks up his glass again, and drains it in one gulp. “I can only deal with one of your philosophical hurdles at a time.”

Hannibal looks both contrite and resentful. “I forget how much I ask of you when you turn away from me.”

“You ask too much.” There are angry tears in Will’s eyes, which are fixated on the bottom of the glass. “It shouldn’t be a surprise to you anymore that I pull away. You should just consider yourself victorious because I always forget myself and come back.”

“Will, you are more yourself with me – with _us_ – than you have ever been, or ever can be.”

“I know,” he says angrily, the anger once again having no target.

“Don’t you want to see yourself as you truly are?”

Will thinks for a while, and evens out his breathing. “I told Abigail once that I was probably more like you than I knew, and she asked if that scared me.”

“What did you say?”

“I said no. I was lying. Or at least, I’d be lying if I said that now.”

“What am I like, Will?”

“You’re selfish.”

“Quite.”

“Manipulative.”

“Yes. And I’m in good company. You would have used my desire against me.”

“Yes.”

“What else am I, Will?”

“Sadistic.”

“Not categorically.”

“I’ve said it before. You’re inhuman.”

“I have never wanted to be human.”

Will has no idea how to respond to that. Hannibal takes Will’s empty glass and his own and refills them.

As he’s doing so, he continues. “Humanity has always been a disappointment. I have always wanted to be more than human, even if that means being a monster.”

Will takes his glass from Hannibal silently. He doesn’t want to interrupt his flow of talking or his own flow of thinking. Things are so close to making sense. Or so close to not being totally contradictory. Hannibal’s words feel like a line tugging the hook in his sternum, and Hannibal is reeling – _has been_ reeling him in so slowly he hadn’t even noticed.

“How do you think you would be, if every person you’d ever met fell short of your expectations? Despite my profession, all I’ve known of people is that they are sickeningly ordinary. I only needed _one_ to rise above that, but the world did not deliver. If I don’t see others as less, I will be ruined by disappointment.”

“Are you afraid I’ll disappoint you too?”

“Yes.”

“But I don’t right now.”

“No. I am still fascinated by you.”

“Why don’t you wait for me to _stop_ being fascinating before you punish me as though I already have?”

“I’m trying.”

Will looks down and considers his scotch. He’d been unprepared to hear Hannibal both admit what he’s been doing, and admit the difficulty of stopping. “Okay.” He nods, and sips his drink. Eventually he looks up at Hannibal.

He surprises Will again by looking away. “I don’t want to punish you.”

“I know. I think.”

“What do you know?”

“You’re angry. You have been for most of your life. Tough to let anyone breach that when most of what you feel for others is disgust. I think even the shape of a person incites your fury.”

“You understand.”

“I empathize. Not entirely sure I understand.” Will pauses. “I’m trying though.”

“Why?”

“Because I love you.”

He frowns at each of the words as they leave his mouth. Each one is an accomplice in the criminal disappointment this would be to Hannibal. He empties his glass again and goes to stand by the window because he doesn’t know what else to do.

Hannibal approaches and puts a hand on his shoulder. It feels the same as the night he’d revealed Abigail – nothing as simple as comforting. He moves around Will to stand in front of him without removing his hand. His face is impassive but not stony. Will’s face is just as unreadable.

Hannibal brings his hand down to Will’s sternum and rests his forefinger against the skin just above his top button. He curls it, stroking down til it hooks the button and effortlessly undoes it.

Will looks at his chin, motionless.

Hannibal doesn’t undo the next button, but slips his hand over the newly exposed skin and just under the collar. It migrates upwards til it’s wrapped gently around Will’s throat. There isn’t even a whisper of a threat in the act. If anything, it is an act of adoration. More so when he uses the same forefinger to trace just below Will’s jawline. After a moment he brings that hand up to rest against Will’s cheek.

They both lean into the kiss. It feels like part of the conversation, their words now touches. The audible giving way to the tactile.

“Give yourself to me.”

“No.”

“I want you.”

“I… don’t care.”

“I want to be inside you as you were inside me.”

There is a pause. Will feels that he shouldn’t have to explain this, but Hannibal seems to be waiting for him to say something. “I don’t trust you, Hannibal.”

“Will you ever?” Hannibal asks softly.

“I told you, I’m trying,” Will answers just as softly.

Hannibal kisses him more forcefully this time. Will returns the intensity and pressure and wraps an arm around Hannibal’s waist til his hand presses against the small of his back. His other hand he raises to Hannibal’s hip, but it only rests there lightly. They part at the lips but maintain their closeness. As usual, Hannibal doesn’t seem the least bit self-conscious studying Will’s face, eyes travelling from feature to feature, unhurried. The next kiss brings their lips together only enough to feel the warmth of the other’s – not tentative. Reverent.

Hannibal’s mouth retraces the path his finger took along Will’s jaw, and continues down til his chin rests comfortably in the crook of Will’s neck as he kisses and noses behind his ear.

“You don’t owe me anything, Hannibal.”

“But you were so good to me.”

“No. I wasn’t.”

“You let me finish.”

“I _forced_ you to.”

“Believe me, I wanted to. But I regret not being able to return the favour.”

“If you think I’m going to let you fuck me so we’re even–”

“Will,” Hannibal says sharply. He bites his earlobe. It might have been seductive if that had been his intention.

Will sighs and lets his head rest against Hannibal’s. “It’s not crude if it’s true.”

Hannibal’s lips are slackened when he resumes kissing Will’s neck; he leaves a wet patch of skin that he returns to again and again.

“It isn’t true.” Hannibal removes his lips and his hands from where they’ve drifted – to Will’s curls and upper back. At the same almost languid pace, he moves past Will again. He unbuttons his suit jacket and sits in one motion.

Will joins him, but before sitting he runs a hand over the head rest of the pale blue velvet chaise-lounge. “I thought this was just for decoration.”

“You sat here once before.”

Will frowns. “During an _episode_?”

“No. However, you were distraught enough that it is reasonable to assume you weren’t interested in my furnishings.”

Will smiles. It is a small smile, but not because it’s masking anything darker. He sits and presses the pads of his fingers against his eyelids, trying to conjure up those lovely bright spots. When he opens his eyes again, the little white dots blend in with the backdrop of rain falling outside the window.

He looks down when he feels Hannibal take his hand. It seems like a strange move. But Hannibal just lifts it for examination. He traces over his knuckles where Will had shredded them against the teeth and bone of Randall Tier and his suit; where Hannibal had gently cleaned and bandaged him.

“You have a scar.”

“I should.”

“Punishment?”

“A reminder. I don’t want those I kill to become nameless, faceless bits of obscurity in my past. Even people who deserve torture and death… must have a right to at least mark their killer.”

“That sounds like a mechanism for coping with guilt.”

“I’m not an executioner.”

“I am.”

For once, Will can’t tell if it’s a question or a statement. He pulls his hand out of the warm grasp and runs it through Hannibal’s hair. “You’ll be mine.”

Hannibal pulls him forward by his shirt front and kisses him deeply, just as Will is about to inhale, so Will is slightly dizzy when it ends. This could be the reason Hannibal’s next words sound both protective and threatening, but it’s not likely. Hannibal is the master of harmonizing extremes.

“Not you. Never.”

“Would you ever hurt Abigail again?”

“She is part of you,” Hannibal answers, and oddly, Will doesn’t mind his lack of yes or no.

The hand resting on his chest finally begins to undo the other buttons. Will fingers the lapels of Hannibal’s jacket in dissatisfaction. Hannibal pauses in his task long enough to shrug off the jacket and, as an afterthought, the waistcoat. Will’s attitude towards it would be much the same. When he returns to Will, his lips follow his hands. He pulls the shirt away from Will’s chest and admires him, just as unselfconscious as he is admiring his face.

He takes Will’s chin and pulls Will’s face towards his. When he kisses him, Will thinks Hannibal might be breathing just a little harder than usual. Hannibal takes the hand that was on Will’s chin and, never breaking contact with Will’s skin, runs it down his chest.

When Hannibal’s fingers start to pull at his belt, Will wrests himself away. Hannibal apparently anticipated this, and his voice is soothing as he grabs the back of Will’s neck with his free hand and keeps him close. “Mine will stay on.” He slips down to the floor between Will’s knees and finishes unbuckling him while pulling him into a kiss. He keeps kissing him, and lets the hand on his belt slide away to knead his thigh. He’s caught on that moving too fast is dangerous. So he slides his hand up Will’s thigh and squeezes, then drags it back down, digging his fingertips into the muscle. It’s meant to soothe… and impart that he wants more.

The hand around Will’s neck drifts downward and unbuttons and unzips him deftly. Will grabs Hannibal’s face with both hands and kisses him deeply. He’s breathing faster too. They can’t seem to keep their mouths apart for very long, and even before Hannibal touches him again, they are gasping, hand clasped around the other’s neck, tongue exploring tongue, teeth, palate, sucking lips… gulping down air only when they need to.

Then Hannibal tracks down his chest again, and brings his hand from Will’s thigh to his crotch and gently rubs his palm against him. Will’s cock stiffens, but his shoulders relax. That is, until Hannibal goes the same way with his mouth.

Will pulls a leg up onto the couch and digs his heel into the cushion as though he’s going to push himself away, or maybe even knee Hannibal in the chin. Hannibal grabs him around the thigh, so he is successful at neither. Somehow, he pulls him closer.

With one arm wrapped around Will’s leg and the other caging his waist, Hannibal has to use his teeth to pull Will’s briefs down, and the sight makes Will flush with unsolicited pleasure. He is still tense when Hannibal takes the tip into his mouth, but doesn’t try to pull away again.

Will feels his own chin drop and his next breaths are sharp and loud. He finds he can’t close his mouth fast enough to mute them. Hannibal is almost lazy with his pace as he wets his lips and then takes Will further. He flattens his tongue against the underside of Will’s shaft as though trying to include every skin cell in this stimulation. Then, still slowly, but purposefully, he wraps his mouth around him and sinks down as far as he can go.

It’s a triumph when Will cries out and lets his head fall back and his fingers tighten on the headrest – His stomach muscles are taut; he is still struggling against his own pleasure, but he probably would every time. The vocal proof of his desire is enough to incite ferocious arousal in Hannibal. He sucks at him hungrily as Will brings a hand down to grasp Hannibal’s hair. Before long, Will is desperate to jerk his hips up and feel the back of Hannibal’s throat – and he’s disgusted at the idea of abusing someone that way, but turned on at the idea of that someone being Hannibal… This all feels decadent – sinful, if there is such a thing. But for once the word “wrong” doesn’t come to mind.

Will feels velvet sliding against his skin and realizes he’s been unconsciously rolling his hips to match the pace of Hannibal’s tongue and lips. He looks down. He drags his fingers through Hannibal’s hair. Hannibal still somehow looks perfectly composed, even as he kneels and hunches over to lap wetly up the length of Will’s cock. Will lets go of the headrest and grabs hold of his shoulder tightly. The sight of Hannibal’s back muscles rippling beneath his shirt as he does this, just to please Will, is unbelievable.

Fingernails dig into Will’s sides. Hannibal buries his face in Will’s abdomen as though he’s trying to block out everything. There is a struggle happening, but Will doesn’t know if he’s fighting to get words out or to keep them in. When Hannibal does speak, his voice is low, almost menacing.

“ _You_ are my beloved.”

Then he dives down and takes Will’s length in his mouth as though that will erase the words from his tongue. He touches, kisses, licks everywhere he can with forceful urgency, as though making Will moan loud enough will drown out the echo of his admission.

When Will finishes, Hannibal swallows as though he can flush out and replace the weakness within himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My brain fused the actual chaise-lounge with the pale blue velvet couch ages ago, and if head-cannoning furniture is a thing, well... this is that.
> 
> Also, the entire plot of Part 2 is Hannibal sneakily replacing all his office furniture with stuff from BoConcept. So he can recline sexily on everything.
> 
> Just kidding. But I would love if someone wrote that.
> 
> [My twitter](https://twitter.com/ES_Therru)   
>  [My tumblr](http://es-therru.tumblr.com)   
>  [Our Etsy store](https://www.etsy.com/ca/shop/TheseAreHerDesigns)


	11. Dollhouse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Murder husbandy stuff. The murder family get closer to the point of no return. Will helps Jack out with one last case. It fucks him up real good. Super fun.
> 
> Trigger Warnings: disturbing imagery, S01E13-type trippy brain stuff, the first of the aforementioned medical misfortunes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't thank my murderwife, [Kate](http://archiveofourown.org/users/asprigofzest), enough for all her support and patience beta-ing this. She is the absolute tits, and I am so so lucky to have her as an editor. Her [tumblr page](http://weesprigofzest.tumblr.com) is spectacular. You should check it out. [My tumblr](http://es-therru.tumblr.com) is nowhere near as extensive and Hannibal-rich, and 50% of it is just stuff I've reblogged from her.

_Your values and decency are present and yet shocked at your associations, appalled at your dreams._

 

They don’t have sex often. It is a ruinous affair every time. Every thrust of Will’s hips is punishment and reward for the lies. Every manipulation of Hannibal’s is an answer to the mind games. When Hannibal grinds down on Will or shoves himself back against him, it’s an act of contrition and a dare and a confession.

Even when their movements are slow, the intrinsic worship that accompanies every kiss, stroke, every pinch of skin takes the life out of them, and simultaneously restores it.

They are bound in these moments – these life-changing events that involve only the two of them. To an outsider, nothing really changes. Will doesn’t make a habit of staying in Baltimore. Hannibal never cancels his appointments. Abigail spends a few days in Baltimore, then a few days in Wolf Trap, and so on.

Sometimes their discussions devolve into fights. Sometimes their lovemaking does as well. But they end up tangled in each other’s limbs and when Will reenters they are both so high, the end is almost immediate.

It’s an underground boxing match, and a long chase, and a lazy backstroke on a placid lake all at once. They never make love without stripping each other down to the bare bones, devouring lips, breaking skin, abusing each other and hanging on for dear life. They aren’t capable of connecting this way without drowning each other in the epitome of passion.

When Will runs his tongue along sensitive stretches of skin and Hannibal responds audibly, or with a tremble, he feels his own skin vibrate with energy. The lightning-strike current is ever-present. And when striking the bundle of nerves inside Hannibal makes him cry out and spend himself, every nerve ending in Will’s lower back and thighs catch on fire.

“Why do you think this is so easy?” Will asks on one of the nights he does spend in Hannibal’s bed.

“I wouldn’t say it’s easy.”

“Fine. Why do you think this works _at all_?”

“Because it didn’t used to. And we didn’t deserve each other before.”

“We do now?”

“I don’t care now.”

Sometimes they can be heard from the hall, humming each other’s names with whispers and moans of adoration. Abigail doesn’t mind. It isn’t strictly sexual. It’s soul mates speaking to each other however they can. _I need you. And you need me._

There is a quiet defiance in their relationship. They prepare for their confrontation with Jack, anticipating and dreading it. Will gives nothing away in his increasingly infrequent reports to Jack, but it doesn’t really matter at this point. Jack suspects Will, of course he does, of being torn. But he chooses, of course he does, to let him ride it out, confident he can guilt Will into coming down on his side.

The day draws nearer. Their new life peeks over the horizon. Abigail goes on more night time errands, securing passports, papers, tickets, contacts…. They are so close to what they’d each struggled violently against admitting they wanted.

And then everything falls apart.

 

They call them the Dollhouse Murders. The girls are no older than ten or eleven. The first pair is posed sitting down for a tea party; bright plastic dishes and fake cupcakes look nightmarish in the light coming through the filthy windows.

_Six more girls will be taken and posed. In the mind of Will Graham, every one of them will be Abigail._

Throughout the day, his un-screamed screams slowly fill up his stomach, his lungs. They permeate his spine and beat against his skull. They trickle through the interstitial fluid of his limbs.

When he steps into the front hall of Hannibal’s house and leans back against the door to close it, he immediately feels like every cell in his body has gained lead properties. Every atom he’s made up of seems intent on dragging him down to the floor right there. He drops into the chair beside the little phone table and hall mirror and his head drops into his hands.

He just has to collect Abigail, drive back to Wolf Trap, cook them some dinner… Suddenly the list that had seemed so innocuous this morning is the twelve labours of Hercules set out before him. He squeezes his eyes shut. He’ll get up in a minute. He’ll call for Abigail in a minute. He’ll just sit here for a minute.

“What’s wrong?” Abigail’s voice is decidedly not playful. She kneels in front of him and gently puts her hands on his knees.

Opening his eyes is too much of a struggle. He swallows and tries to say something reassuring, but apparently speaking is also out of the question. After a few fruitless attempts to get him to say something, look at her, anything really, she picks up the phone and dials Hannibal’s cell.

He feels his thinking shutting down like lights in an office building being switched off floor by floor.

“There’s something wrong with Will,” Abigail says into the phone.

_There’s something wrong with you._

“Can you please just come home now? I think he’s sick or something.”

_I think you’re still sick._

_And there is something wrong with you._

Much to Abigail’s relief, Hannibal arrives home only a few minutes later, briskly hangs up his coat and assesses the situation. He is his usual calm, assured self. She moves out of the way so he can kneel in front of Will and take his wrists.

Without the support of his hands, Will’s head drops onto his chest.

Abigail witnesses this lack of autonomous movement and feels very small. None of her skills seem applicable in this situation. Neither do any of her coping mechanisms. “What’s happening?” The voice that comes from her mouth doesn’t sound like her own. It sounds like the girl who months ago and far away asked a stranger pitifully, “Are you going to kill me?”

Hannibal answers, sounding quietly livid. “It would seem Uncle Jack hasn’t learned his lesson.” He lets go of one of Will’s arms (it flops uselessly into his lap) and places a hand against Will’s cheek.

“I can’t do this anymore,” Will croaks out. It sounds like a death rattle.

Hannibal gentles his voice to say, “I know. Will, I want you to come with me.”

“I can’t,” is all Will manages.

“Come on.” Hannibal is using professional voice: soft but with total authority. Will is little more than dead weight as he tries to help him to his feet, one arm under shoulders, the other around waist. It looks as though he’s just going to fall forward, but Hannibal doesn’t let him, and after a few long seconds, Will drags one heavy arm up to hold onto Hannibal’s. Even this small gesture seems to cause him physical pain.

“I _can’t_ ,” he says again.

“You can. Just a little ways. I’ll help you.”

Abigail goes to Will’s other side and takes his other arm.

_He was loving, right up until the moment he wasn’t._

_I’m worried about nightmares._

“I’m gonna be messed up,” Will chokes out.

It feels like it takes an hour to get him upstairs. Every few steps, his movements become completely arrested, and Hannibal has to say, patiently, “Don’t go inside, Will.”

Once, Will replies, “But that’s where all the answers are.”

Abigail doesn’t know what any of it means. She leaves them when Hannibal turns the shower on. He gives her shoulder a quick squeeze before she goes, not letting go of Will.

Will feels himself being undressed and maneuvered under a stream of hot water. The lights come back on one floor at a time. His limbs begin to cooperate, one by one. He lifts a hand and rubs his face under the water. He feels a bar of soap being pressed into his other hand and it’s so heavy, it might as well be a bar of solid gold.

“I think I’m dying,” he says, but manages somehow to drag the soap over his skin. He realizes in time that Hannibal is still holding him under the elbow, and has to attribute the fact that he’s still standing to that. “Thanks,” he says, watching drops of water darken Hannibal’s rolled-up shirtsleeves.

Abigail doesn’t ask any questions that night, and Hannibal doesn’t offer any answers. But the next evening is the same. Will arrives, slips into catatonia, Abigail calls Hannibal, Hannibal comes home early, and they make the agonizingly slow ascent to the bedroom.

So that night she does ask. They are sitting in the study by the fire, reading. Or rather, Hannibal might be reading. Abigail is pretending to read. After looking up at him nervously and back down again a few times, she says, “Hannibal?” She thinks it might be rude to just dive in. “What’s wrong with Will?”

“This case he’s working on is particularly brutal. That’s all he could say.”

“Are you going to let him go back tomorrow?”

“No.”

Of course, it’s not as simple as that.

Hannibal is on the phone when Will enters the kitchen fully dressed, though still looking like he’s coming apart at the seams. “You’d better not be calling Jack.”

Hannibal sighs and hangs up. Will assumes it was still ringing and he’d stopped him in time. “I think you should call in today, Will.”

“I know you do.”

“Please, Will.”

“I can’t. The girls… They’re even younger than Abigail. There can’t be any more,” he almost whispers. “I just can’t,” he reiterates firmly.

“You can. I’ve already stated that the only lives I care about are yours and Abigail’s. And you are slipping again.”

Will shakes his head. “I’m sorry about the past couple nights. It was just a shock. It won’t happen again.”

But it does. That night, while Hannibal is upstairs with Will, Abigail drags one of the couches across the study with the adrenaline from useless, nervous, frustrated energy. She feels more trapped now than she had when she was sure she’d never see Will again. When Hannibal comes down to investigate the noise, Abigail glares at him til he helps her push it into place against the wall. She can feel her lip trembling, so she folds her arms and looks away, and Hannibal leaves her without saying a word.

Will manages a bit more of an explanation that night, but not much. “There have been six in the last three days,” he croaks when he hears Hannibal reenter the room. “They all look like Abigail.”

Hannibal says nothing, but when he slips into the bed, he pulls Will to him the same way Will had done the night he and Abigail rescued him.

Will goes in early the next day, armed with a full bottle of aspirin. Partly to avoid confrontation with Hannibal, but mostly because of a sick feeling that they _have_ to catch the killer today. It is an infuriatingly vague premonition.

It takes them all day to find the crime scene they know is out there. The killer has been posing his dolls in increasingly obscure locations, so the call-ins happen later and later in the day. Apparently he doesn’t care what state of decay his dolls are found in, as long as he ties the local and federal law enforcement in knots.

 _He’s patient, obviously_. Will sighs and pops an aspirin in frustration. There’s no need to revisit the psychopathic checklist. There’s no _time_. _He must have eyes at all the crime scenes_. Will looks at the phone desperately. Still no call-in.

_Eyes, Will. Focus._

_So, security cameras with live feeds_? Only at one of the scenes.

“All the security cameras are from the same manufacturer,” Jimmy says, “but what do we do with that? There has to be something else connecting them.”

“How the hell is he even choosing them?” Zee is looking down the row of bodies, running through the next to nothing they have so far. “When we’re talking under 13, a three year age range is a pretty broad palate.” He walks down the row. “Eight, ten, eleven, nine, nine, eight. They’re all girls. That’s pretty much it. They don’t even look anything alike.” He throws his hands up and leans back against the cadaver cabinets.

 _They don’t look anything alike_ , Will reminds himself feverishly throughout the day.

“Could he have been watching? At the crime scenes?” Jimmy postulates half-heartedly. “Binoculars or something?”

Will looks down at the photos between them on the desk. First scene, grimy windows. Second scene, no windows. Third scene, tiny windows high up on the wall. He shoves them away angrily. “Not unless he was in the room with us.”

Will scrubs at his face with his hands, exasperated and very nearly exhausted, then peers through his fingers at the bodies. _Nothing alike_ , he reminds himself. Jimmy and Zee exchange looks. Some sort of understanding trickles into Will’s mind. He closes his eyes til it becomes a steady stream.

“He’s looking for the perfect daughter.”

Right on cue, Jack walks in. “Who is he?”

“I don’t know yet.” Jack is about to say something, but Will carries on thinking aloud. “He’s got this mission he’s set for himself, and he doesn’t care how long it takes. He won’t set us a new scene until we find the previous one…”

Jack says something but Will focuses on the _drip drip drip_ of clarity in his head as it comes together.

“Each time we found a scene it was because of grunt work – some obscure paper trail, giving us nothing but the location. So he wants us frustrated, wants us buried in paperwork. The clue will be in… I don’t know… employee records? Maybe someone who was hired at all three locations?”

He hears Jack order Zee off in pursuit of any paperwork concerning the sites.

Paperwork. The perfect daughter. “Jack, can we get a court order for adoption agencies in the neighbouring counties to send us their records? I think we’re looking for a man who made multiple applications and was rejected.”

Jack looks pleased. Will feels a rush of energy and thinks for a moment that they can do this. They can find the scene _and_ catch the killer before he sets a new one.

The feeling intensifies when Zee returns with printouts of potential sites. “These are all buildings owned by the same company. Three of them are in line for the wrecking ball, two are under construction. The rest are small storefronts, and this guy.” Zee slides a picture over to Will.

Will nods. “Jack?”

“Let’s go.”

They find the girls in a windowless concrete room in a small semi-detached building that is neither run down, nor in a highly trafficked area. Nothing to tip them off except a hunch.

The girls are tied against reused mannequin stands, posed in an embrace. Their arms are wrapped around each other, but their faces are turned forwards – towards the “audience.” Their bottom lips are pinned down in a permanent pout. Thin, shallow cuts – carved into their skin from each eyeless socket down to cheekbone, chin, dimple – resemble tear tracks. They look like twin Melpomenes.

At 9pm they are back at the morgue with the two new bodies, waiting restlessly for the information from the adoption agencies. Will gives up trying to keep his brain from superimposing Abigail’s face on each of the victims. He just swallows down the horror with an aspirin.

At 10pm they have a suspect. When Jack hangs up the phone, he bangs the table triumphantly.

“We got him?” Zee asks.

“Same guy put in applications at adoption agencies in every county. And get this – he’s the CFO at the company that owns all those damn buildings.”

At 10:15pm Jack has another team on the road to investigate.

At 10:30pm, Jack sends Will, Zeller and Price home. They all protest, wanting to wait til they bring the suspect in. But Jack says he’s going home too, and just to leave their phones on. There’s nothing else they can do tonight.

So it’s midnight when Will returns to Hannibal’s. He doesn’t remember the drive. Abigail opens the door before he’s even up the front steps. Before he can lose momentum, she grabs his arm and propels him to the couch she’s repositioned just inside the study.

His teeth are chattering and his eyes are moving rapidly behind their lids by the time she lays him down and covers him with a blanket.

“You’re scaring me,” she says, not to herself, but not really for him to hear either.

_There’s something wrong with you._

Suddenly Will is making choking noises in the back of his throat and his limbs are tense and twitching.

Abigail yells for Hannibal, who comes running at the unadulterated panic in her voice. The seizure subsides after a minute, and Hannibal helps Will sit up.

“Oh god.” Will pitches forward with a gasp and his stomach heaves, but nothing comes up.

“Will, I need you to look at me.” He does, but his eyes are unfocused and he looks like he still wants to vomit.

Abigail’s feet take her to the table in the hall where she picks up the phone and carries it back to the study. She clutches it to her chest while Hannibal assesses Will’s condition.

“Repeat after me. My name is Will Graham.”

“My name is Will Graham.”

“Good. Raise both your arms for me.”

Will raises his right arm. Abigail’s heart stops. Hannibal says, “Abigail, please call an ambulance.”

Will is unconscious again by the time they arrive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OKAY, NEXT TIME ON PLANET MURDER FAMILY...
> 
> Canon-divergence probably but I mean who knows anymore. Apparently everyone who died is still alive. AKA it needs to be June 4th already. These promos are fucking destroying me.
> 
> Part 2 of Kissing Families is more Hannibal-Abigail-centric, and we get a wee peek behind the human veil. They do not respond well to Will having a stroke. More than one person gets his or her comeuppance. People’s plans are exposed. Other people make new ones.
> 
> The Medieval Murders continue. We get some Verger/Ingram backstory and sex to make up for the lack of it on the show (even though I super respect Bryan Fuller and the decisions he made about Margot’s character). The sassy scientists fill in some blanks for us.
> 
> Also, I’m giving up on serious chapter titles. There is too much fun to be had, and anticipatory pick-me-ups may be required.
> 
> You can find me through [my twitter](https://twitter.com/ES_Therru), [my tumblr](http://es-therru.tumblr.com), and [our Etsy store](https://www.etsy.com/ca/shop/TheseAreHerDesigns). Do check out [Kate's blog](http://weesprigofzest.tumblr.com). She is the most amazing person I know, and I'm pretty sure life would be pointless without her. She is the Hannibal to my Will Graham and vice versa (depends on the day!) <3


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